


Where the Mountains Meet the Heavens

by KannaOphelia



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1920s, 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Ancient China, Ancient Greece, Angelology and demonology, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward Flirting, Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Bickering, Clothes Porn, Creationist "history", Crowley Takes Care of Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley fell in love on the wall in Eden, Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), Dagon is Crowley's line manager, Demisexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Kiss, First Time, Good Omens Big Bang, Gratuitous use of ancient love poetry, Happy Ending, Hell, Historical Figures, Historical References, Humor, Illustrated, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Wives (Good Omens), Jazz Age, Language of Flowers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Bastille, Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens), Post-Scene: The Ritz (Good Omens), Regency, Resolved Sexual Tension, Ridiculously expensive hotel suites, Sappy Ending, Stuart Restoration, The Arrangement (Good Omens), True Love, and when he's accidentally good at it he feels terrible, but only for one scene, smut with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: "I don't want to let go of you. Never again.""Crowley," Aziraphale breathed, and for one heady, impossible moment Crowley thought the miracle would be even bigger than he thought, that the embrace and themy darlingwould be followed with a kiss, because Aziraphale's gaze was on his mouth and there was a heat to it, as if it was tinged with desire as well as tenderness.****6,000 years of pining.Collaboration with  the amazingTamslyandlonicera_caprifoliumas artists for the 2020 Good Omens Big Bang.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 326
Kudos: 707
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Poker in a Pitch Dark Room: Multichapter Ineffable Husbands fic by KannaOphelia





	1. Your Hand, Your Answer (2019)

**London, 2019. After** Tadfield **Airport. Your Hand, Your Answer** 1

Crowley felt Aziraphale's stout fingers twine around his, and the world felt strange and new.

Holding hands in itself wasn't new. He could pinpoint the precise moment in their long lives they had stopped holding hands. Of course he could. Every touch, every soft word, every secret kiss was catalogued safely in Crowley's ancient brain where they could be pulled out and looked at whenever he needed them. After the touching had stopped, he had needed them quite often.

In the airbase, Aziraphale had held out his hand as if they had never stopped, and until Shadwell had moved between them, they had been linked together in purpose and touch. Afterwards, they had sat at opposite ends of the bench, as if afraid to be close. Aziraphale had wiped the mouth of the bottle, as if they could contaminate each other with saliva. Once they had openly kissed in greeting, and kissed in different, more frantic ways in private. In this century, Aziraphale seemed afraid of an indirect kiss. It was all Crowley's fault, and that didn't make it feel any easier.

And now. Aziraphale's thumb was rubbing the back of his hand, slowly and gently, and they were sitting thigh to thigh, and it had been so _long_ since they had had so much contact. Crowley's head was full of memories of sitting close in other centuries, his thigh hooked companionably over Aziraphale's more solid one as often as not. He wanted to do it now, only the bus did not allow for such extravagant movements and it was enough, after all, to cradle Aziraphale's hand. To memorise his breathing once more, taste the air and the warm scent of him through the burned rubber smell he was too exhausted to miracle away. To imagine he could hear the beating of his heart through the noises of the bus. _Here, alive, safe, together._

"Stay at my place," he whispered, trying to make it a plea rather than an offer this time. Trying to be honest, that it was not just _kindness_ , that word that was so lovely when it was Aziraphale and so shameful when it came from a demon. Was begging any less humiliating? _Stay with me, let me see you are safe, let me keep you safe, don't leave me alone to wonder if you are in danger or sad or in need._ If he had lost his job in the ineffable game, then protecting Aziraphale was the only reason for existence he had left, unless he counted watering his houseplants and feeding the ducks.

Aziraphale recited very quietly, as if it was an answer, " _I wish to know, my sweet and gentle friend, why to me so harsh and full of cruelty; I’d know if it’s pride, or ill-will in the end._2 You sang that to me once, in Provence. Do you remember?"

Crowley could remember, of course he could, he remembered every hint and confession across the centuries; drunk enough for plausible deniability but not drunk enough really to have not chosen the troubadour's song deliberately, hoping and fearing to be understood. Not so much sung as sloppily declaimed, an arm slung around Aziraphale's neck, slurring in his ear.

"You always did like poetry."

"It was never ill-will, nor pride, Crowley."

"No. I know, my love."

"I detested the troubadours, and the more you loved them and learned the songs and sang them to me, the more I hated them."

"I'm sorry if I bothered you with my unrequited affection." Crowley felt unpleasant coldness trickle through him. Court and woo and express devotion, think you at least were causing pleasure, and find out nine centuries later that you'd just been irritating the beloved.

"Oh, fiddlesticks. It was all so _false_. The troubadours took too much pleasure in pining and posing. It felt like a mockery of — of all we were. Roman neoteric poetry was more sincere. _I am mad: my brain is entirely warped by this project of adoring and having you, it can’t help but seek what is unimaginable — your affection. This it will go on hunting for, even if it means my total and utter annihilation._ "3

"Aziraphale?" Crowley sat up, frightened at the unexpected words.

"Was I supposed to let you be annihilated, Crowley?"

"Would have been worth it," he muttered.

"Not to me!" Aziraphale's rounded tones could nonetheless lash like a whip.

"I didn't mean you! I never wanted you to die for me," Crowley protested. _Never, never._ And only today, Crowley had thought he had lost Aziraphale once, and was going to lose him again. Besides, of course it wasn't worth it to Aziraphale, too solid and worthwhile to be tormented by longing and consider tossing existence away just to hear the words.

"If you think my own death is what I meant, then you are far less shrewd than you pretend to be." Aziraphale's words were so rarely sharp, his inner steel usually as cushioned as his form, that Crowley had no defence against them when the steel was bared. Then Aziraphale sighed, was all softness and gentleness again, just like that. "You always had my affection and you always will."

There was love in Aziraphale's voice, clear and pure, and words Crowley had longed to hear, and it still felt like a rejection.

"Stay with me tonight," Crowley repeated. "I want to start the new world with my friend by my side. Like we ended the last six thousand years. Like we started in Eden."

The warm hand tightened on his own. "Yes. Of course."

_Kiss me, kiss me_ , Crowley wanted to say. _Kiss me right here on the bus, before we die._ He held his angel's hand instead, and didn't risk lifting it to his own lips. He wondered if Aziraphale remembered that he had been the first to kiss the demon's hand, unexpected and sweet.

He wondered what it would take to feel Aziraphale's lips against his hand again, let alone his lips.

* * *

1 Chapter title from _Kiss Me on the Bus_ by the Replacements. “I might die ‘fore Monday / They’re all watching us / Kiss me on the bus.”↩

2 12th century song, _When the clear days come_ , from the Comtessa de Dia, one of the few female troubadours↩

3 Catullus 68. ↩


	2. Beware the Cunning Serpent (4000 BCE, Eden)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Be careful, mate,” Shamsiel said. “Brought evil into this new world, that one. Don’t trust him.”
> 
> Of course Crawly was evil. That was part of the job description, and he wouldn’t have Fallen and been doomed, poor thing, if he wasn’t evil. He hadn’t seemed particularly evil, just worried, encouraging and a bit, well, lonely, but maybe that was how he lowered defences and caused angels to Fall. Being all nice and vulnerable that way.
> 
> Still. Aziraphale had been really worried for a moment there, and if Crawly hadn’t turned up and taken the blame for him, he hated to think what might have happened. He would have been in serious trouble for letting the humans out, maybe even Fallen himself. He shuddered. Perhaps, in fact probably, there were evil motives behind it, but it had felt _kind._ Looking across the darkening desert, Aziraphale could feel his cheeks warm and wondered why.

“So, your transfer has been approved, Aziraphale. How have you been keeping?”

Aziraphale blinked at the angel who had just appeared next to him on the Wall, towering a good head over him. Aziraphale was clearly supposed to know him, and there was something familiar about the broad, good-natured face under the long braid of golden hair. For a moment he shifted in awkward embarrassment, and then it came to him. “Ah, Shamsiel. Of course.”

Shamsiel grinned at him. “Harder to recognise without four heads, right? Seemed to make more sense just to keep the talking one down here. Miss being able to roar and screech, though.” He stuck out a bronzed leg from under his robe. “I'm finding it a bit hard to get used to the feet, too. Ticklier than hooves.”

“Yes, I should imagine so.”

“Easier for you, I should think. You Third Sphere lot already looked a lot like the humans. Well. It was nice to see you again, Aziraphale, you’re always a ray of sunshine, but you can clear out now and look after the humans if you like. I’m taking over the gatekeeping.”

“Really? A cherub? I mean, you were Lord of the Fourth Heaven.”

“Don’t ask me. I’m a Watcher now. We’re being reassigned all over the place. Besides, after the mass exodus, everyone’s a bit eager to show a friendly interest in the humans. Don’t want to be suspected of Questioning the importance of the new creations. Even _Michael_ ’s joined the First Sphere, and she’s a commander type. I hope she isn’t too bossy, answering to Uriel is bad enough.”

Aziraphale shuffled his feet. “Well, you know that the Fallen have expressed an interest in mucking things up for the humans. They sent up a Serpent,” he added a little diffidently, trying not to give the sense that the Serpent had been rather friendly and quite good company actually.

“You’re right. Rumours of a second War, and all over these ape creatures, no wonder Michael’s on alert. Anyway, no humans in Eden any more, mate. Some sneaky bugger let them out.” Aziraphale shifted uneasily. “They couldn’t have got past the gates without help. Not with the flaming swords we have.”

Shamsiel was peering at Aziraphale’s waist as if looking for the sword, and panic was rising in Aziraphale’s throat, when there was a slithering rush and a form shivered into shape on Aziraphale’s other side, black wings spreading.

“Some of my best work. So glad you noticed,” Crawly sneered, and the rush of relief in Aziraphale’s heart almost made him dizzy. He clasped his hands and gave Crawly a wavering smile of gratitude, careful not to let Shamsiel see. “My Boss gave me a special commendation for smuggling them out.”

“Yeah, and I heard _our_ Boss gave you a special curse over the apple business. Piss off, snake.”

Crawly pouted. There was no other word for it. “Can’t really do worse to me than She already did, could She? Anyway, it seemed to be just symbolic. My legs work just fine in this form, and I can eat just as well as I ever did. I particularly,” he added, leaning around Aziraphale to hiss at Shamsiel, “enjoy apples.”

“I prefer pears,” said Aziraphale hastily, trying to get in the way before any arguments, or worse, smiting started. “And grapes. And gooseberries, they’re nice. And pomegranates, have you tried a pomegranate yet?”

Crawly laughed. Aziraphale turned back to him and noticed, with an intake of breath, that the setting sun was lighting up the rich red curls like fire, and his eyes were glowing as if Aziraphale was the most amusing, endearing thing he’d ever seen. “Doesn’t matter what the fruit is, so long as it’s forbidden.”

Shamsiel turned to Aziraphale. “Be careful with this one, mate. I knew him in the old days. Prince Lucifer’s precious little boyfriend — well, we all know how _that_ turned out.” Aziraphale shot Crawly a nervous look, and Crawly, without even touching his wings, gave the impression of preening.

“I know mistakes were made, but we are all siblings,” Aziraphale said, desperately trying to find a polite response to this awkward conversation. He made the mistake of letting his gaze flutter over to Crawly, who winked at him. Aziraphale quickly looked forward across the desert again.

“Not any more, we’re not. This little cunt convinced more angels to Fall with his lying tongue than anyone. I don’t question what the Almighty was doing when She gave him that ability to tempt and deceive like that, but you always were a nice bloke, Aziraphale. Trusting. Stay right away from this Snake, he’s pure evil. Has no business to be talking to angels, anyway.”

“And yet, here we all are,” Crawly said cheerfully. “Having a lovely chat. Well, hope I see you around, angel — Aziraphale, was it? I’ll remember. My own Boss seems to think I’m doing so well with the humans I should keep it up, so I’m sure we’ll run into each other. Bye, Shamsiel, remember me to Uriel. Rather you than me.” He stepped from the wall and dropped for a moment before the desert winds came up under his wings and lifted him up in flight, swooping across the darkening desert.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said. “Eve is expecting _triplets_. They are going to be something quite different to newborn angels, I’m told, they’re going to be all little and helpless. I don’t think I should leave the humans to a demon, all alone. Perhaps — perhaps I should go after him.” He stared out across the desert. Night was falling; still, he could see a blur of black and a flash of red, speeding across the sands.

“Be careful, mate,” Shamsiel said again. “Brought evil into this new world, that one. Don’t trust him.”

Of course Crawly was evil. That was part of the job description, and he wouldn’t have Fallen and been doomed, poor thing, if he wasn’t evil. He hadn’t _seemed_ particularly evil, just worried, encouraging and a bit, well, _lonely_ , but maybe that was how he lowered defences and caused angels to Fall. Being all nice and vulnerable that way.

Still. Aziraphale had been really worried for a moment there, and if Crawly hadn’t turned up and taken the blame for him, he hated to think what might have happened. He would have been in serious trouble for letting the humans out, maybe even Fallen himself. He shuddered. Perhaps, in fact probably, there were evil motives behind it, but it had felt _kind_. Looking across the darkening desert, Aziraphale could feel his cheeks warm and wondered why.

“I don’t suppose,” he said, “the demons can be redeemed? After all, the humans can.”

Shamsiel shook his massive, beautiful head. “Nice thought, very _good_ , but not a chance, love. The humans have free will. We don’t. Listen, it’s none of my business but take my advice. If you’re going to Fall, Fall for something big. Not listening to a Serpent who gets his rocks off making angels tarnish their wings.”

“I have no intention of Falling at all!” Aziraphale said indignantly.

“'Course. Well, if you ever want to pop back to Eden for old time’s sake, step in for a chat.” He clapped Aziraphale companionably on the back. “Always welcome, little Principality.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Aziraphale said, a little coldly. He couldn’t help feeling patronised. The form the Almighty had given him wasn’t _that_ little, even if it wasn’t a massive warrior one like Shamsiel's. Soft and strong, She had said when breathing Aziraphale’s body into form, a shape humans would naturally trust, with gentle shoulders to cry on, but would still be a soldier for them when needed. He _liked_ his form.

He wondered why Lucifer had chosen Crawly’s human-like form. Maybe those mobile lips and thin legs were to make him seem non-threatening. More dangerous than a monster, when thought about like that.

“I should go,” Aziraphale sighed, and drifted into the night.

He found Adam and Eve quickly, and they were pitiably glad to see a sympathetic face, especially when he magicked up some water for them. It would be a hard road for them, poor dears, but he would do what he could for them.

There was no sign of the demon until Aziraphale wandered away from them in search of — well, to be honest, in order to _create_ some food that he could pretend to have found. No idea how to find it without convenient fruit trees around.

“Hullo, Aziraphale. Told you I’d run into you.”

A dark form stepped out of the shadows of a sand dune.

“Crawly.” He tried to sound stern, but it was hard not to feel like he was hailing a hero. “What you did for me back there, taking the blame—"

“Taking credit,” Crawly said firmly. “I get credit for bad things, you get credit for good things. Better for us both."

“Even so, th—”

“Don’t! You’ll get us both into trouble.” Crawly looked visibly frightened, his wings beating the air. “Best to leave it as it is.”

“I’m sure,” Aziraphale agreed. “But I do feel I should do _something_.”

Crawly’s wings quieted, and he grinned. “How about a non-aggression pact? We’re on the same assignment, from different sides. We’re going to bump into each other. So long as you don’t smite me, I won’t try to dispatch you, and we both avoid inconveniently replacing bodies. That’s fair enough, right?”

“I suppose it is,” Aziraphale said. He felt like he was falling into some kind of trap, but it made sense. Killing each other over and over would be unnecessarily painful and hard to explain to Head Office.

Crawly extended a hand, and Aziraphale looked at it, wondering what he was supposed to do with it. He reached out his own, and the demon’s fingers curled around his, cool and soft as a snake’s skin. Golden eyes met his, with an expression Aziraphale felt he should be able to read, and couldn’t. Questioning, perhaps? The Fallen always questioned. They were famous for it.

Speaking of Questions, what was _he_ supposed to do?

On impulse, he lifted the linked hands to his lips and dropped a kiss on the back of Crawley’s. It seemed a symbolic way to seal a bargain.

“Ah. Right. Not what I quite had in mind, but — that will do it. Yeah.” Crawly’s yellow eyes were wide and startled in the dark, and Aziraphale felt foolish. He dropped the demon’s hands.

“See you around, angel,” said Crawly, and shimmered into snake form, slithering off into the night.

* * *

When Aziraphale finally made it back to Eden, a stern-looking Dominion with long curly brown hair was guarding the Eastern Gate and Shamsiel was gone.

“Chained under a mountain until Judgement Day,” said the Dominion, in response to Aziraphale’s enquiry.

“ _What_?"

“Not just him, pretty much all of the Watchers,” said the Dominion, whose name was Muriel. “How long have you been out of Heaven, not to know that? Biggest Fall since, well, the big one.”

“But _why_?" He felt panic rise. Surely it wasn't so easy to Fall. Shamsiel had been kind, had warned him.

"Got too close to the humans. Started teaching them all kinds of forbidden knowledge and having sex with them. I mean, I don’t think it was the sex that was the problem precisely, it was the babies. The Nephelim.”

“ _That’s_ what the Nephilim are? Half angels?” Aziraphale found this even more shocking than the Fall. That those violent, depraved creatures were the children of angels... But then, demons were of angelic stock too. He was forgetting.

“It was that Serpent again,” said Muriel, and a shock went through Aziraphale. “Slithering around, putting ideas into good angels’ heads. He’s got a real thing for letting the humans find out things they shouldn’t, hasn’t he? Right since the beginning.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose he has,” said Aziraphale, feeling oddly as if something dark and painful was twisting in his heart.

“Look out for that one,” Muriel said, shaking out their wings. “He’s Down There, too. Quite a cunning Adversary, I should say.”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale, his eyes aching. “He is.”

* * *

“Well done, my child.” One of Satan’s fingers, as massive as Crawly’s serpentine girth, stroked down his coils, as Crawly sat curled in his lap. “Look well on the Snake, my brethren and underlings, for he has swelled our masses by two hundred.”

“Yeah, that makes a lot of difference out of ten million,” muttered one of the Dukes.

“Silence!” roared Satan. It made Crawly a bit uncomfortable about sitting on his lap, really, having all this noise blasting above him, but as a mere Count he didn’t have a seat at the Dark Council, and he was da—blessed if he was going to stand in the peanut gallery in his moment of glory. “How many angels have you personally brought down since the Fall, Ligur?” the Prince of the Morning growled.

“I’m working on it,” Ligur snarled. “Takes a while to chip away at an Archangel. But Michael will start returning my messages any century, you wait and see.”

“It’s not the numbers, it’s the quality,” said Dagon helpfully. “Lots of cherubim and favourites of the Almighty in that lot. Even Lebbim.1 As Crawly’s line manager, I’ve always been impressed by his devotion to dark duty. Nurtured it, I have."

Crawly thought it was time he hissed up for himself before Dagon stole all the credit. “Your Grace, before they Fell, the Watchers introduced the humans to all kinds of forbidden knowledge. They know the signs of the sun, Earth, moon and clouds, astrology, and the control of enchantments.”

“How’s that supposed to help?” snarled Hastur. “If you haven’t forgotten, the bloody humans are the reasons we rebelled in the first place. So you want them to know all this angelic shit when they’re already Her little favourites?”

“It’s forbidden knowledge, you—Your Grace. Look, She hates people knowing things. That was the whole point of my first temptation!”

“And writing,” Dagon said happily, and Crawly threw them a grateful look, even if they were probably only anxious that Crawly shone in order to ensure that some of the glitter drifted upwards to them. “Going to be great, this writing thing. Imagine everything we can do with it. I remember when I was a recording ang—” They bit down on what they were going to say. “Well, anyway. Take it from me, paperwork and Hell are a match made in... Hell.”

“Forget not that Crawly has already blackened the first human soul with murder,” Satan’s deep voice rang out, as he continued to caress the snake in his lap. “Thanks to his temptations, the Watchers have taught the humans the use of weapons and of killing blows, and our first murderer already walks the land of Nod.”

“Nngh, yah, that was a good one,” Crawly said, trying to repress his feeling of guilt. He hadn't meant anyone to kill anyone else.

Unbidden, an image came into his mind, of a plump blond angel playing with the first toddlers, Abel snuggled in his lap while Azura and Cain clambered all over him, pulling at his hair and his wings. Aziraphale was terrible with these new small humans, really, had no idea how to control them. His face had lit up with indulgent love every time one came near, like a small, radiant sun. And now Abel was in Heaven, probably bored out of his holy brain, and it was only a matter of time until Cain joined them all Down Here, all because Azura had picked one brother over the other. Crawly had been avoiding Aziraphale ever since for fear of seeing sad reproach on a face built for smiles.

Humans, they were a puzzle all right. This new thing, romantic love, that the Almighty had come up with for them, was the worst, pairing and grouping off like that. It was a good — a useful thing demons knew nothing of love. If Samyaza and the others hadn’t been stupid enough to fall for humans, literally, they would still be the Almighty’s precious Watchers, not chained under bloody mountains. Lucky for Crawly, he guessed.

The Dark Council meeting broke up. Crawly took his human form again in order to carry out his shiny new Commendation, to put next to the one about the Apple business, in his quarters in the Ninth Hell. He never visited his quarters he could help it, anyway. Too damn cold. A bit of an infernal joke, housing a snake in an icy lake. He supposed he wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, that was the point.

“Nobody likez a teacher’z pet,” someone buzzed in his ear as he left the council room. He was pretty sure it was Beelzebub, but what was he supposed to do about it if Satan liked to give him credit for a job badly done?

Crawly needed to go Upside again. He wanted to go Upside again. But—

Aziraphale had really loved those babies. For some reason, Crawly still felt sick to his stomach when he thought about how it had all ended up.

Crawly wasn’t sure he could face him. Which was a stupid thought because Aziraphale knew the rules of the game as well as he did. They were adversaries, and Crawly’s job was to lead the humans into temptation, while Aziraphale led them toward virtue. No hard feelings, just doing their jobs, all part of the Great Plan.

Aziraphale had explained it all to him, when they had been trying out this new human thing called alcohol and had ended up slumped on each other’s shoulders, talking too hard and laughing too much, until the conversation had started to become long and rambling and thoughtful.

Free will, that was the bugger. The humans couldn’t transcend the angels in Good unless they also had the chance to become truly Evil. Neither Aziraphale nor Crawly could escape being part of God’s plan, which struck Crawly as really unfair. While his memories were blurred, he was almost sure he had sulked. What was the point of Rebelling at all if God was just going to laugh at his attempts at free will?

Aziraphale had patted him consolingly and half dozed off after their discussion. Neither of them had got the hang of sleeping yet, although Crawly had made a note to learn as soon as he could. The angel had leaned his shoulder on Crawly’s arm, face flushed red, and Crawly had curled a wing around him like the humans wrapped themselves with furs. He was quiet in case Aziraphale realised he was pretty much snuggled up to a demon and decided he had to move away. When Crawly turned his head to see if Aziraphale had figured out sleep yet, after all, thistledown pale hair had tickled his mouth and nose, and Crowley had remembered that awkward kiss on the back of his hand and just formed a kiss on his lips, copying, and not daring to press it to his companion’s head.

Oh, no, this was bad. He was golden boy in Hell right now, he shouldn’t be wishing he’d had the courage to kiss an angel.

Hell was really bloody lonely, although Heaven hadn’t been much better. There was no one he could talk to about Aziraphale, not someone who hadn’t hated him on principle since the Fall even if they’d never known him. The demons spent their time down here, plotting revenge. They could be having a much more interesting time up there with the humans, who were the enemy as well, of course, but quite fascinating, especially when small.

Crawly was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to spend so much time hanging around an angel, even though when you looked at it sensibly there were going to run into each other all the time anyway, so he might as well be friendly. No one in Hell would understand why he worried about an angel’s happiness, that was for sure, unless—

Crawly concentrated and materialised in a cave under a mountain.

“Bugger off, you fucking galah,” said the demon formerly known as Shamsiel.

“I’m a snake, not a galah. Come on, Adromalech, you were Upside too long to confuse reptiles and parrots.”

“A galah. Squawks all the time and has nothing of bloody substance to say. It’s your fucking fault I’m down here.” Adromalech's muscular arms flexed against his chains.

“Oh, come off it. You were in Samyaza’s gang. We both knew it was only a matter of time until you Fell. And the whole ‘Let’s breed monsters and take over the Earth’ thing is totally on you guys.”

“Heard it didn’t stop you claiming credit, you second rate try-hard.”

“Look, I’m a demon, what do you expect? Sorry Uriel was so pissed off with you, but she’ll forget about it in a century or two, and we’ll have the chains off and a cushy position for you by then anyway. Besides, you scored a hell, if you don’t mind me saying so, of a demonic form. All those peacock feathers suit you. I heard you nearly got the ass form, got to be grateful for our Prince’s mercies. He must like you.”2

Andromalech growled at him. “Stop rambling. What do you want, Serpent?”

“That’s better. Um, well.” The subject was harder to raise than Crawly had thought it would be. “You remember the first time we met, after the Fall? In the Garden. You were taking over the guard duties, and there was this old guard there. What was his name, uh, the Principality Aziraphale? Pale curly hair. Remember much about him? What he likes, things like that? Any favourite colours or anything?”

“You cause my Fall by telling me how hot humans are and then you have the nerve to ask advice about your love life?” Adromalech roared.

“Love life?” Crawly turned scarlet. “Nnnngh, don’t be ridiculous. I’m a bloody demon. Love is not a word I use, okay? I just thought my job would be easier if my rival and I were getting along.”

“Oh, rack off. I saw the clucky way you looked at him.”

“I didn’t look at him like anything. But, um. You knew him back in the old days?”

“Forget it, mate. That angel’s a good little boy. No way a wowser like him will be tempted to Fall. Path of righteousness, that one.”

“I wasn’t going to tempt him. I’d hate to make someone as pure and lovely as him Fall—” Crawly realised his mistake fast enough to get out of Adromalech’s reach before his head was smashed against the wall of the mountain. “Um. Sorry.”

“Get out.” Adromalech was pulling at the chains so hard that Crawly figured there was a good chance that he would break the chains before anyone else managed it.

He got out.

1 An order of healing angels ↩↩

2 Shamsiel taught humans forbidden knowledge about the sun. Adromalech was a Syrian sun god later considered as a demon, and different sources link him with asses (the donkeys, although I’m sure he had a cute bod) and peacocks. ↩↩


	3. Earthly Choirs (London 2019)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.  
> Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.  
> A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

“How do you set the music on this thing?” Aziraphale asked, running his hand curiously over the sound system.

“Don't know,” Crowley said, vague and impatient and tired. He wanted to get clean. More than that, he wanted a moment alone until the rattling in his brain, the fear and triumph and the miracle of a hand in his once more and an angel in the flat could resolve into something he could understand. Make a plan, get them out of it. They had saved the world, and he needed to hold onto his optimism, remember that things always worked out for him — and that meant for Aziraphale too — that the world was fundamentally _on Crowley's side_. The only thing that hadn't worked out for him was winning the angel.

But there was Aziraphale, fussing over his sound system, plump and whole and real and profoundly irritating in that way that made Crowley want to snarl at him and kiss at him the same time. Not burned alive, fond of him, and perhaps that was enough, at least for tonight.

Aziraphale had died. The world had nearly ended. Satan had appeared. They had betrayed their sides. And Aziraphale was trying to put music on. It was annoying, and endearing, and Crowley was frustrated with him and by all the heavens and hells he _loved_ him and perhaps, if they survived this, he could tell him.

So he made a fatal mistake, and told Aziraphale how the sound system worked.

“It just has an on button and an off button. It just plays what it wants to.” Crowley had a set of carefully alphabetised CDs dating mostly from the 1990s, but the sound system had never required him to actually put them in.

“Oh my, how clever,” beamed Aziraphale. “Modern technology. I suppose that's why it doesn't need to be plugged in or have any speakers, either.” He looked with Crowley with bright round eyes, and Crowley had absolutely no idea if Aziraphale was sincere or taking the piss. Again. Affectionate, frustrated laughter welled up in him.

“I'm going to go have a shower,” Crowley said, because he was stinking with ash and fire and rubber and didn't know if he had another miracle in him. And the water would be soothing on his aches. Aziraphale might have a brand new body, but he didn't. “Make yourself at home. Liquor cabinet and wine rack are that way, kitchen is that way, wave at the telly if you want it to work. All that I have is yours,” he added, in a nonchalant way that he hoped concealed the _please, anything, just take it, take me_ behind it.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, prim and proper as ever, and Crowley rolled his eyes at the formality and went to soak in the shower. Not a bath, or he might never wake up.

He realised his mistake as he emerged, having spent far too long debating what to wear out of the bathroom, restored enough to make some clothes. He wished he dared go for just a towel slung low around his hips, but Aziraphale wasn't some easy human temptation, and might wither him with a look or a word if he wore too little. Pyjamas, surely pyjamas weren't too formal. He spent a whole ten minutes debating whether to wear a top or not and eventually decided on a plain black cotton brocade pyjamas. Sleeves rolled up to display his arms to best advantage, collar bones and a sprinkling of chest hair showing under the eye drawing way the collar was buttoned, enticing but unimpeachably modest. _Bare feet_. Crowley felt a little ridiculous about his nervousness, especially as Aziraphale had seen him in a lot less, but that was before they were on the same side.

He felt even more ridiculous when he walked out to polyphonic waves of celestial harmonies.

Well, not _celestial_ harmonies, which were a bit repetitive and on a single theme and frankly was one of the bits Crowley missed least about being a seraph. _Choir_ was a bit literal in the First Sphere. Human harmonies on a celestial theme, which had more variety in voices and were far more moving.

Of course the sound system had responded to Aziraphale's presence, and was pouring out love and beauty and goodness and praise to the Almighty into the dark, empty flat. Of course. It only played _Gothic Symphony_ and _Dance of the Mountain King_ for Crowley. Aziraphale got the stuff that was lovely, just like him.

Crowley stole a moment to stand, drinking in the sight of the angel. Like a lamp in the concrete and cold of the flat, face transported with bliss in the music. Would he look like that at other moments of bliss? Long lashes shadowing his eyes, eyebrows raised, nostrils flared, lips stretched tightly, every bit of him intent with pleasure.

Not permitted to think about, at least in his presence. Still the Almighty's child, even in rebellion against the other angels. Still with perfect faith in his Holy Father, in ineffability. Still God's, not Crowley's.

Well, Crowley had lived with that for six thousand years.

“ _Scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi, et sub pennis ejus sperabis_ ,” exulted the choir. _He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler._1 Well, David had meant the Almighty, and Aziraphale might trust in Her still. Crowley's trust was in the angel who had covered him with his feathers so long ago.

_Can you trust me in return, Aziraphale? I have tried to be your shield and buckler, I have tried to protect you in return for sheltering me so long ago, over and over. Tried to protect you from danger, from trouble, even from inconvenience. I failed you today, but I won't fail you again. I promise._ It rang hollow in his own ears. He still could see the flame flickering on the edge of his vision. _Maybe I only failed because we were apart, not on our own sides._

He moved forward and did something he had never done before. He stood behind Aziraphale and wrapped his arms around his chest, gathered him close, breathed in the scent of his skin and perspiration — no cologne, Adam had missed that detail — and the density of his presence in his arms as the music flooded around them. Flesh and blood, body heat and the movement of his ribs as he breathed, dandelion fluff soft hair and the texture of skin over fat and muscle and sinew, tangible, or at least Crowley imagined, under the layers of clothes. Once they had both been purely ethereal creatures, but Crowley was struck hard and painfully with just how precious these corporeal forms wrapping them were, Aziraphale's mind and spirit clothed in the softness and strength and heft of this body.

Returned to him. By the Antichrist.

Aziraphale's hands came up and covered his. “Listen to the words, Crowley.”

“ _Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee._ ”

“It's a promise, you know. I will protect you, Crowley. Against all of Hell.”

1 Aziraphale is listening to [Qui habitat in adiutorio altissimi à 24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqGEYsnetZ0) by Renaissance composer Josquin Desprez, a setting of the words to Psalm 91. Many thanks to ale_psiconautis for the suggestion and encouragement.↩


	4. Feel the Earth Move (pre-Dynastic China, 1831 BCE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world's first earthquake, and a smitten demon rescues an angel.  
> And, hey! Alcohol! Clever humans.
> 
> Amazing art by Tamsly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stunningly beautiful art is by [Tamsly](http://tamsly.tumblr.com). Thank you with all my heart, I love it so much!

#### Mount Tai, 1831 BCE, pre-Dynastic China

Aziraphale tried to move his wing once more, to drag it out from under the fallen wall. No good. He was trapped at a ridiculous angle with no way to gain enough purchase or leverage and the pain that shot through him with every movement suggested his wing was broken, which was frankly terrifying. Noxious gases were filling his head with strange thoughts and colours making it hard to concentrate on making miracles, even if he wasn’t completely drained from trying to evacuate the village.

The last thing he wanted was to give himself a divine revelation.

He could wait until his powers returned fully, although he was currently draining them just to make the pain bearable, keep himself from dying of exposure, and combat the hallucinogenic effects of the gasses. Or he could suck his pride up and ask Heaven to get him out.

If he reached Michael, that wouldn’t be too bad. Even Gabriel would probably praise him kindly for saving as many humans as he could, even if he would sniff at Aziraphale’s carelessness in getting trapped himself.

If he reached that new Dominion, Sandalphon, who was rumoured to be the angel of Intercessional Prayer — well. Sandalphon would help him, of course. One angel to another. But Aziraphale, who would never have admitted it for a moment, didn’t trust Dominions, and suspected they didn’t trust Principalities. He was a helper, there was no way of getting past it, and Dominions were by their very nature smiters.

Sodom's destruction was only sixty-six years in the past, and Aziraphale was not yet ready to see anyone involved yet, for fear he would forget all his angelic restraint and punch them in their smug faces. _That_ would cause paperwork, and possibly a recall to Heaven.

Mind you, so would discorporating out here.

He could try a direct appeal to God. He closed his eyes. “Please, Father, don’t let this prayer go through anyone else. I know you won’t intervene directly, but if you could just send someone to help. Someone sympathetic, who won’t lecture."

No answer. She never did reply much, even in the old days, even when spoken directly to. She would just smile, or sometimes offer a kiss, which made things _feel_ better but didn’t really seem useful once you recovered from the bliss. For all they weren’t supposed to have free will, She did tend to leave them to themselves. Aziraphale supposed he would have to get himself out of this mess himself.

“Hullo, Aziraphale.” A voice that was warm, familiar and above all _happy_ to see him. “What have you been up to?"

It was demonic intervention. There was no way the Serpent came from _Her_. It just felt Heaven-Sent.

* * *

“It’s a new thing called an earthquake,” Aziraphale explained, trying to stretch his wing. Agony went through him, and he shuddered.

“I’d help if I could,” Crawly said a bit miserably, “but, you know. Infernal power on an angel. Might do more harm than good.”

“Get me out of the way of the poisonous gases and I can heal myself.” Aziraphale hesitated. “If you hadn’t moved the wall—” He looked up, full of gratitude.

“Don’t talk about it.” Crawly’s voice was gruff. “Here we go, angel. Might hurt.” He put what felt like a surprisingly strong arm around Aziraphale’s waist and hauled him to his feet. Aziraphale put all his effort into not screaming. These fragile corporeal forms...

Crawly chattered to him as he steered him down away from the former spring, and Aziraphale felt that it was to distract him from the pain. He caught himself shooting little grateful glances at the demon, and tried to control them.

“So, what _is_ an earthquake? Did the people around here do something to really piss Her off? They worship the mountain or something here, don’t they?”

“No, it’s not personal. The way I understand it, the Earth is in big pieces, and sometimes they are going to — move. In this case, one bit moved over another, and that’s why we have those new hills. It’s a miracle really,” he added stubbornly, because after all he was talking to a demon, and there was no sense letting him know how upset he’d been at seeing all the things the humans had built crumble.

“Sure it is,” Crawly said, and his tone made all Aziraphale’s doubts flare up even more, “Couldn’t possibly be bad design. I mean, if She wanted hills there, why not put them there in the first place?” He found a fairly flat pile of rubble, and lowered Aziraphale to it with surprising gentleness. “There you go, angel. You’ll be all right now.”

Aziraphale expected him to leave, and felt a guilty stab of pleasure when Crawly took a seat opposite him and magicked up a vessel of sorghum liquor. It was always this way. When away from the Serpent, he told himself to beware of his wiles, his habit of tempting into questions and rebellions, to be on his guard. When the Serpent was right there, all Aziraphale’s treacherous instincts reached out for his presence. And alcohol.

“Here.” Crawly casually offered the jar. “Local swill, but it’s strong. It will help with the pain.”

Aziraphale looked at it doubtfully. “The people here see alcohol as a divine religious rite.”

“You’re an _angel_. How much more religious can it get? Drink up.”

Aziraphale took a deep sip. It was incredibly strong, burning his throat. He scrunched his nose with distaste at the flavour of ammonia, but it was certainly comforting. He drank more. He noticed that Crawly now held his own vessel, which was _definitely_ not divine or for medicinal reasons. He chose to not comment. It was nice to have someone to drink with, especially to take his mind off the pain.

“How did you end up like that, angel?” A knowing look, half exasperated and half — fond? Surely not — from yellow eyes. “You would have been fussing around helping the humans get out, if I know you, Don’t — don’t tell me they _left_ you.”

“They were frightened. I fell from high up and — oh, you know. Sometimes the wings come out by instinct.” Aziraphale sighed. He could _feel_ the sin tainting them as they fled, leaving their helper helpless. So disappointing.

“Bloody humans. Can’t trust them.” Crawly’s face was hidden by the jar he was drinking from.

“Well, that works to your benefit,” Aziraphale said a little crisply, “What brings you here?”

Crawly blushed. “Embarrassing, but I was actually a prisoner. Sealed in a bloody magic circle. Locals mistook me for a demon.”

“What do you mean, mistook you for a demon? You _are_ a demon, my dear boy. I mean, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is what you literally are.”

“I mean a different type of demon, not a fallen angel. Local type. A seductive mountain sprite.”

Perhaps it was the liquor. Aziraphale couldn’t help glancing at the long flaming hair gathered up on his head, the slender chest revealed by the parted robes, the long black feather coat falling behind him like his own wings. Of _course_ Crawly noticed. And preened. “I know you’re thinking I have the looks for it.”

“Vain creature,” Aziraphale said, not too harshly given his gratitude. In fact, it sounded fond, and he blushed, especially when Crawly grinned.

“Anyway, they weren’t very friendly to me.”

“Couldn’t you get out?”

“Not without help. How embarrassing would it be to admit to that? My superiors would have laughed their arses off. So I was sitting around, hoping to tempt some of them to let me out.” Crawly waggled a brow and pouted seductively and Aziraphale, despite himself, chuckled and then pulled self control back. "And then this earthquake thing happened, and…” Crawly frowned suddenly, brow wrinkling in confusion. “I thought I should go take a look at the new hills. Or something. Anyway, I’m here and wasn’t it lucky?”

“Very lucky, my dear,” Aziraphale said, wondering just how drunk he was, “I was dreading talking to Sandalphon.”

“Sandalphon? Don’t know that one.”

“Think you knew him when he was human. Elijah.”

“ _What?_ That arrogant little shit became an angel?”

“Crawly, really.”

“But you just can’t do that. Pick humans and make them replacement angels. It’s cheating.”

“Tempting them into Falling isn’t?”

“That’s free will! And why Elijah? I mean, he was pretty good at music and righteous as hell, but he was going to fall to evil any day soon. I’d been tempting him for three hundred bloody years, and the self-righteous smug ones fall hardest. He was on the brink of — oh, no. That is _really_ cheating. Do you know how much trouble I got into for failing that assignment?” Crawly suddenly sighed and let his head drop into his hands. “There has to be a better way,” he grumbled, “Spending ages on a human and hoping they die at the right moment before they repent, it’s bollocks.”

“I’m sure you did an excellent job of tempting him, dear,” Aziraphale said comfortingly, and then caught himself. A despondent demon who failed his assignments was a good thing, not a bad thing. Unless it got him recalled to Hell and a less congenial demon sent in his place...

Aziraphale was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to reassure his favourite demon. He was even more sure he wasn’t supposed to have a favourite demon in the first place. He was probably supposed to feel afraid when he was pinned helpless and a demon turned up, instead of as if salvation had arrived. Aziraphale wasn’t always sure he was any good at his job.

They sat in silence for a while. The pain was getting worse. A sign of healing, he supposed. He was beginning to tremble, and his skin felt clammy.

“Angel, you don’t look too good.” A slithering motion, and Aziraphale’s face was cupped in a long-fingered hand. “Hey, you’re not usually that cold. I’m sure your face isn’t supposed to be all wet like that. Can’t you turn the perspiration off?”

“No. I’m concentrating on healing my wing.”

“But...” Crawly looked helpless. “Look, you shouldn’t be out in the wind when you’re sweating like that. You should be somewhere comfortable. Preferably sleeping.”

“I don’t sleep. Why would I sleep?”

“It helps humans heal their bodies.” Crawly bit his lip, which was, Aziraphale noticed, awfully close to his own mouth. Almost as if Crowley was about to kiss him. For some reason that made him giggle.

“Right, that does it. You’re delirious. Look, I’m going to get into real trouble if anyone finds out, but—you owe me, right?” The fading sun was cut out suddenly as black wings spread, and Aziraphale had the jar of liquor taken gently out of his hand. He tried to protest, but was told firmly, “No. You can have more when you get home.”

“Home?”

“I have a place. Hang on.”

One arm came under his knees and one about his shoulders, and he was lifted against a thin, magically strong chest. Lifted up, and up, and they were over the beautiful green treetops, at least the trees that weren’t currently lying down in piles of dirt after the earthquake. The trees were napping, he supposed. No stranger a thought than the thought of being carried in a demon’s arms.

Napping. He hadn’t tried it. Somehow, it felt more than possible now. Aziraphale let his eyelids flutter closed, listening to the beat of Crowley’s black wings, the faster beat of his heart. So demons still had hearts after all.

“Angel?” How could a demon sound so tender, carry him so carefully?

“Hmm?” He tried to open his eyes, but to no avail. His lids fell heavy, and as if stuck together with gum.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

“I like warm colours. Gold, yellow. Orange. Red.”

“ _Oh._ ” Crawly sounded pleased. “I’ll remember.”

Aziraphale snuggled his head in closer, wondering dimly why Crawly cared so much about his favourite colours. No one had ever asked him that before. Nothing about Crawly made sense to him, not that bright open smile, the friendly voice, the willingness to help him out of difficult situations, the way he was holding him close. Dangerous. It was dangerous to think of that. Remembering Sandalphon raining terror and death from down the sky, Aziraphale's sleepy head resting against the demon, it was hard to believe that the demon was more dangerous than an angel.

Reckless to trust the Enemy with his corporation. Ridiculous to feel so safe and protected.

For the first time in his existence, injured and exhausted, flying through the night, Aziraphale fell asleep.

* * *

“Hi, Adromalech!”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Rack off.”

Crawly waved away the protest. “Guess what? Aziraphale is in my bed!”

“Congratulations. Never thought you’d pull it off. Does that mean you will stop bothering me for dating advice?”

“Not like that,” Crawly sighed, sadly, “But he had an accident and he’s healing up.”

“You are going to be in _so_ much shit when I tell Beelzebub.”

“Figure out how to get your chains off to talk to her first, _mate_ ,” Crawly said cheerfully. “Anyway, you don’t want me shoved in a pit. No one else visits you. Hey, I brought you booze. To celebrate. Tastes like piss, but it’s strong.”

“How do you even know what piss tastes like?”

“Got to try everything once.”

“You’re completely feral, you disgusting snake.” Adromalech’s beautiful bronzed hand reached out eagerly for the liquor. “So, tell me the salacious details. Only because I’m bored out of my existence because, I dunno, some drongo got me chained up under a mountain.”

Crawly tried to ignore the swipe. “I found out my angel's favourite colours!”

“Well done. Only took you one and a half millennia. What devious strategy did you use?”

“I asked him.”

“Fucking hell.” Adromalech took a deep swig. “No wonder you’re on tempting duty. Master of subtle seduction, you.”

“Thing is,” and Crowley felt heat prickle up his throat, “He picked colours like, you know, yellow. Orange, red.”

“So?”

“They’re _my_ colours, right?”

“I thought black was your colour. You’re a black snake.”

“With red bits! And yellow eyes and orange hair! Do you think that means he’s falling in love with me? Was it a sign?” Crawly asked anxiously.

“I don’t know whether to pity you or vomit.” An\dromalech sighed. “Look, maybe Aziraphale just likes sunsets.” There was a thoughtful silence. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to figure out how to wrap a sunset up. Look... p’raps you can arrange to watch a sunset together. It’s bloody romantic.” He frowned. “Maybe I should have taken Uriel to Earth to watch a sunset.”

“Maybe, if you wanted to get with Uriel, you shouldn’t have married quite so many human women.”

“ _Who put the bloody idea into my head in the first place?_ ”

“Sorry. I really thought you’d be out of the chains by now and living it up with the girls and your monsters. The Nephelim are causing chaos down here, you know,” Crawly added, taking a companionable swig of alcohol, “They tried bringing them up with the other cambions, but they just bullied them. Your old friend Berith1 cannot _wait_ for you and the other Watchers to get out of your chains and resume parenting duties. He can’t get anyone to babysit.”

Adromalech didn’t betray any interest in his children. “Well, _I_ thought you’d stop chasing Aziraphale by now. Told you, mate, he’s too good for you. You and me, we’re trash. Destined to Fall. Aziraphale is—”

“Kind and clever and lovely and just a bit of a prissy bitch,” Crowley said dreamily, “He’s perfect.”

“You really have got it bad for him.”

“Yeah. Two millennia. Sometimes I think I’m going to discorporate when he flutters his eyelashes at me. And he’s more adorable every time I see him. You should see him eat honeyed figs, getting the honey all over his fingers and sucking it off, it's like... it’s like... Well, they pretend _Heaven_ is beautiful.”

“You really are puke-making,” Adromalech grumbled. “Anyway, Aziraphale won’t Fall.” He drained his jar and Crawly snapped his fingers to refill it.

“I told you. I don’t want him to Fall. He would be miserable down here.” He frowned. “He’s my _friend_. How weird is that? He knows I’m a demon. Why is he my friend?”

“So you’re telling me your feelings for him are pure and chaste while you watch him lick honey from his fingers. Mate, you get what you want, he Falls.”

“I don’t see—”

“Trust me on this one. You have him and taint him, he ends up down here. Look, will it really be so bad? They love you down here. If you get credit for making the angel fall you can probably claim him as your own protégé, and then you can debauch him in any way you like and give him flowers in his favourite colours afterwards to make up.”

“Shut _up_.”

“You might as well be honest with yourself, serpent. If you really loved him, you’d stay away. But if you were capable of love, you would still be up in the Heavens and actually have a shot at courting him. As it is, seduction and Falling are your only dim hope of getting your nasty scaly hands on all that angelic chubbiness.”

“I said, shut _up_.” Crawly unfolded his wings, and shot upwards through the mountain, ignoring Adromalech’s laughter.

* * *

Crawly knelt by the bed, brushing back soft damp hair to check the angel’s temperature. He seemed warmer now, although not frighteningly so, and there was faint colour back on the curves of his cheeks. His breathing seemed easier, with less hitches of pain.

Crawly had been too terrified to put Aziraphale down for long on the dirty sleeping platform of his house, even on a heap of furs, worried that the cold would soak into him or he would crush his wing further. And, somehow, leaving Aziraphale’s head resting on a hard wooden support when he was asleep seemed wrong, even Crowley’s most costly boxwood headrest. Instead he had summoned goatskin mattresses like he had used in Persia and filled them with magically heated water. He could explain it to Dagon later as seeking his own comfort in a properly demonic way.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone, angel,” he muttered, even though he knew the actual thing he shouldn’t have done was come back. He had intended to settle Aziraphale in comfort, with food and water nearby, and stay away. Crowley wasn’t actually worried Andromalech would report him, but if Heaven checked in on an injured angel and found him being nursed back to health by a demon, it would raise all kinds of dangerous questions.

He had come back as if attached by a spring. Just like he had been pulled to the destroyed village after the earthquake, not even knowing what had brought him until he sensed the angel’s presence.

“You shouldn’t trust me, Adversary,” he sighed, “What kind of stupid angel goes to sleep in a demon’s arms and lets himself be carried off? You’re more intelligent than that. I mean, look at your pretty wings. I could hack them off before you even noticed. I could burn you in hellfire and destroy you utterly. I could do _anything_ to you.”

Aziraphale moved his head slightly in his sleep, a faint smile was on his lips, as if he was responding to Crawly’s voice. He muttered something softly in his sleep.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’d never hurt you. Andromalech is an idiot. And I’m a sorry excuse for a demon.” Crawly carefully lowered himself onto the bed on the side of the uninjured wing, creeping in under the furs between the feathers and Aziraphale’s side. “I’ll be here when you wake, angel. And if anyone turns up, I can pretend to have kidnapped you and they can smite me for all I care. You’ll be alright. Just don’t discorporate and get stuck back in Heaven, okay?”

He didn’t dare touch. He was still close enough that Aziraphale’s body heat suffused him, warming his cold blood, and he could feel the feathers just a hand's breadth behind him, warm, too, and pure. And there was Crowley, impure and fallen, a dark cold shadow in all this untouched warmth, demonic instincts singing, tempting him to touch the silks to see if he could feel the flesh below, to steal just one kiss from the lovely curve of the angel’s neck, run his fingers through the feathers, let his desire rise and take control...

He screwed his eyes shut. He would stay and protect. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he couldn’t _have_ something as incorruptible as this angel without risking him being corrupted, chained under a mountain like the Watchers, or twisted into something feral. But he could court his smile and his affections and bask in his warmth, have the delight of his occasional cattiness, coax laughter and affection from him, have the pleasure of watching him revel in the sensual pleasures of this world. He could do more things to pull that glowing gratitude from him or startle unexpected temper and snappishness from him, enjoying each new revelation. Perhaps... perhaps one day hold hands, or embrace close enough to feel the delicious softness of well-padded chest and arms, kiss softly and chastely in greeting.

The thoughts were more terrifyingly intense than anything, however perverted, he had tempted humans into doing with each other. Crowley was afraid that if he looked at them too directly, he would fall deep into his personal hellish pit, built of hopeless yearning.

He clicked his fingers, and the hut was full of red and orange and yellow flowers, peonies and chrysanthemums, roses and camellias, lotuses and azaleas, all the lovely lucky flowers of China. Well, not all of them. He didn’t really believe narcissus could cast out evil spirits, but it was silly to take the risk of exorcising himself from his own house. Aziraphale would wake to a riot of perfume and his favourite colours.

Crowley closed his eyes, lying close to his angel, soaking in his warmth, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

When he awoke, he was alone in the bed, a single yellow orchid laid in his curled hand.

Friendship, he told himself. In this culture, orchids symbolised friendship. Aziraphale had left him with this for a reason.

Friendship between an angel and a demon was rare enough. He should be _grateful_.

He hissed bitterly into his pillow, and crushed the orchid.

1 Berith is Prince of the demonic Cherubim in the classification of demons _Admirable History_ by French inquisitor Sébastien Michaëlis, 1613. He named Berith, who apparently explained the hierarchy of demons to him during an exorcism, as the demon who tempts to homicide, quarrels and blasphemy.↩


	5. With Closing Eyes (London, 2019 BCE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one had ever, ever offered to protect him, a fucking demon. Oh, the Almighty, they had all been Her children, hadn't they? Then Michael and the others had cast them into the Pit and She'd let it happen. This angel, this low ranking, soft, rebellious angel wanted to protect him, and in this moment, held in his arms, it felt completely possible.

"It's a promise, you know. I will protect you, Crowley. Against all of Hell."

Crowley started to shake. Aziraphale's voice was so cultured, so gentle, and with such protective strength behind it. Angelic power, reassuring and comforting.

And all wrong.

"No, angel, t-that's my job. I will look after you."

"But I have nothing to fear," Aziraphale said, sounding surprised. "Oh, Gabriel is annoyed, but I acted in accordance with the Almighty's will, he'll come to realise that. If not, I will go higher." He turned, gathered Crowley close, and the demon stood stock still and deeply terrified in his arms.

"Aziraphale. Aziraphale, listen to me, please."

"What can they do to me? If I Fall, I Fall. I accepted that as the price of Rebellion, as did you. Not so bad when you get used to it, you said. When the worst has happened, that is freeing. But I don't think it will come to that."

"Angel, no, no, no. They will destroy you if we're not careful." Crowley wasn't sure how he knew, but the knowledge was there, weighty in his chest. A warning from the child Adam, perhaps? That terrifying child whose eyes saw through everything.

"Nonsense, dear."

Crowley laid his head on Aziraphale's shoulder and let the tears flow silently as the choral music reacted to his presence, became less spiritual, more discordant. Still beautiful.1

"My dear — my darling, what has come over you?" Aziraphale stroked his back, and Crowley had dreamed of this often, dreamed of being able to be vulnerable and held close with the deep glow of Aziraphale's love surrounding him, dreamed of being called "darling" in that tender way, and now it was happening it was dreadful, and he clung and clung and wept. "I'll protect you. I was afraid before, but not now. I _can_ , now. I know for sure I was right to choose Earth, it's what the Almighty wanted. I'll hold everything I love safe."

"They destroyed the bookshop!" That struck home, so Crowley immediately felt bad about it, as Aziraphale flinched. "Didn't you love that? That didn't save it."

"Perhaps — there had to be a reason for that. Maybe She needed to cut off my last excuse to hide instead of fighting. But She left me you."

"To protect you."

Aziraphale tensed, as if he was going to argue, then relaxed. "All right. To protect each other. My darling, you have protected me so often, won't you allow me to protect you?"

Crowley's heart cramped with the recognition that he wanted that desperately. He would protect Aziraphale, he would always, but perhaps, just perhaps he also could shelter under Aziraphale's wings once more. _Our own side_ — that was both of them together, right? Not just him. After all, the angel was the more powerful one, for all he was inclined towards fluttering and learned helplessness whenever given the chance.

No one had ever, ever offered to protect him, a fucking demon. Oh, the Almighty, they had all been Her children, hadn't they? Then Michael and the others had cast them into the Pit and She'd let it happen. This angel, this low ranking, soft, rebellious angel wanted to protect him, and in this moment, held in his arms, it felt completely possible.

Aziraphale stroked his cheek. "Crowley, you are exhausted. I'd pull the fatigue poisons from you if I dared, but... Perhaps you had better sleep."

Crowley didn't want to let go. "What about you? You don't sleep, but you must be exhausted."

Aziraphale chuckled. "This body has only been awake a few hours. Only been alive that long, fresh and new. It's got a good six thousand years to go, at least. But you need to rest. Listen, your ridiculous sound system agrees."

" _With closing eyes and resting head, I know that sleep is coming soon. Upon my pillow, safe in bed_ ," sang the massive choir of human voices, more discordant yet more beautiful than any angelic choir.

"I don't want to let go of you. Never again."

" _Crowley_ ," Aziraphale breathed, and for one heady, impossible moment Crowley thought the miracle would be even bigger than he thought, that the embrace and the _my darling_ would be followed with a kiss, because Aziraphale's gaze was on his mouth and there was a heat to it, as if it was tinged with desire as well as tenderness.

Crowley held still, and hoped, but there was no kiss.

1 The stereo is now playing [Eric Whiteaker's _Sleep_ , performed by a 2,000 voice virtual choir](https://youtu.be/6WhWDCw3Mng). All lyrics in this chapter are from it.↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constantly changing the summary is what I do, I hate summaries, but I don't usually post chapters this rapidly, so I'm giving myself a headache. XD


	6. I Need a Hero (Atarneus, Ancient Greece, 352 BCE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Look, from what you say, the angel loves it when you swoop in to save him from unpleasantness, right?"
> 
> Crowley remembered Aziraphale sleeping trustingly in his arms as he flew, the way it made his soul ache with tenderness. "Yeah. Yeah, I think he really does."
> 
> "Let him summon you when he needs a big bad demon hero."
> 
> *****
> 
> So basically it's inevitable that at some point in Ancient Greece, Aziraphale accidentally summons Crowley to help him bathe.

**Hell, 353 BCE**

"So, demon summoning."

"That's an interesting way to say g'day," said Adromalech, looking up from the pile of demon-authored reports he was marking with red ink. At least, Crowley hoped it was ink. "You have booze?"

Crowley chucked Adromalech a flask of barley beer. "If we arranged for a human to summon you, would it get you out of the chains? Would it override the chains?"

Adromalech's beautiful face had an odd expression. "You've really been thinking about this, haven't you?"

"Don't have many friends in this place."

"Friends, huh?" Adromaleus took a deep draught of the wine. "You are a really rubbish excuse for a demon, you know that. We're not here to make friends. What makes you so sure that once I'm free I wouldn't rip you side from side for boring me to death all these centuries?"

Crowley shrugged. "I don't, really. But I'm more slippery than you think. I'll take my chances. Besides, I'm in Beezelbub's bad graces right now, got a commendation for the Third Sacred War." He didn't mention that he had hidden the commendation where he didn't have to see it. One little bit of trouble making, tempting the Phocians to cultivate some sacred land, and the humans slaughtered each other for nine bloody years over it.

He was beginning to suspect that he actually was incredibly effective as a demon and he didn't like it. He supposed he should like it. But demons weren't supposed to have consciences. Down to their basic nature, Aziraphale would have said. Crowley felt as uncertain of his basic nature now as he had as an angel.

If Crowley was basically demonic and incapable of doing good, didn't that make sense that every little thing he did led to disaster for the humans? It was all right then, it had to be, it was a job, his place in the ineffable plan, but...

Crowley really wished he could talk to Aziraphale about it again. He sneered at himself. Of course, discussing Hellish matters with an angel made perfect sense. Still, there was something about Aziraphale's fluttering, earnest sympathy that made everything feel better.

Loneliness sucked at him, peeling away the shreds of his heart. All roads led back to excuses to find Aziraphale, and it was becoming pathetic.

"Summoning wouldn't work anyway," Adromalech said glumly. "No human can get me out of here. Uriel does things properly." He sounded a little admiring. "Still — yeah. Thanks. I know no one else is bothering about the Watchers right now."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. Being chained under a mountain is better than being an angel. At least I'm not expected to do good and be grateful for the privilege."

"Some angels love doing good," Crowley said softly.

"And here it is. Back to your obsession. Gonna update me on your non-existent love life?" Adromalech drank more. "Go on. Gotta say thank you for all the reading material, some of those reports are hysterically funny. Especially the web of lies you spin, mate."

"Yeah, no problem. Dagon appreciates the help, and that gets me in good. But there's nothing to update on. I haven't seen my angel for centuries. Don't even know where he is," Crowley said glumly, "Do you suppose he misses me?"

"Misses a moping serpent?"

"Oh, shut up." Crowley slouched against the wall. "He promised we were friends. And then just _vanished_ , I mean, what am I supposed to do with that?"

"Don't start ranting about that again, I can't bear it. Look. Let's get back to the summoning idea."

"Thought you said it was a no go."

"For me. But I've been thinking about your problem. Look, from what you say, the angel loves it when you swoop in to save him from unpleasantness, right?"

Crowley remembered Aziraphale sleeping trustingly in his arms as he flew, the way it made his soul ache with tenderness. "Yeah. Yeah, I think he really does."

"Let him summon you when he needs a big bad demon hero."

"What?" Crowley sat up, hope sharp under his breastbone, then slid down again. "He would never agree to that. He's an angel. Angels can't go around summoning demons, that's a shortcut to Falling."

"Let him Fall. You know that would solve your problems."

"Don't tempt me, I'm a temptation demon, I know all the tricks. Aziraphale's not Falling."

Adromalech let his massive shoulders ripple. "Suit yourself. Well, then, don't let him know. Just... set up a call."

"Can you do that?"

Peacock feathers fanned out in the darkness. " _I_ won't, even if I can. But you'll find Dagon keeps a list of every human book on demon summoning rituals. Time to go suck up, and don't let them know what you are up to."

"How do you know what Dagon has?"

Adromalech shrugged. "They drop in every now and then. Hand me some paperwork, let me know how my ankle-biters are going. You know, two broke into the kennels and ate thirty Hellhounds," he said proudly, "Dagon brought me piles of forms to fill in about it, as Berith refused straight to take responsibilities for the giant little fuckers."

"Hnnh. Interesting."

The proposal was also interesting. It was a bad idea. Crowley knew it was a bad idea. Last thing he needed was to be in Dagon's debt in any way. Crowley closed his eyes... and saw the soft beautiful lines of an angel's face, a nervous smile on gentle lips. His own craving to see that smile again was prickling in his veins.

When he opened his eyes again, Adromalech was smirking at him. "I'll tell you one thing. You'll know if your plump, pretty Principality has any feelings for you. Because summonings only work if the summoner really desires the presence of a demon." His smirk became sharper. "And if he never thinks of you again, well, you can try to stop moping after him and act like a proper demon."

Just because Crowley understood temptations didn't mean he was immune to them.

* * *

"You want humans to be able to summon you without knowing they can?" Dagon looked at Crowley with disbelieving scorn.

"Yeah. Well, it's a bit scary, summoning a demon, right? Kind of waves in your face the whole possibility of eternal damnation. But if you knew there was a demon, then obviously you wouldn't do any rituals, that would be bad, but you couldn't help thinking they could get you out of a tricky situation..."

"You're crazy," Dagon said flatly, "Giving a human that much power over you."

"Oh, come on. I won't even be in a summoning circle. It'll be a piece of cake."

"Well, if you get exorcised, don't come crying to me for a new body. I'll have you double-checking expense claims for a millennium." Dagon scribbled a file name on a piece of paper, waving him to the corner of the stacks from which black waves of darkness were pulsing outwards. "And if someone gives you a bath in holy water, at least it will keep you out of my fucking hair. Be careful, I think we lost some imps to some Pontianaks lurking back there a while ago. Or don't be careful, not my problem."

"Thanks, Dagon. You're a peach." Crowley kissed their cheek and managed to escape into the stacks before some very sharp styluses caught him in the throat. Fortunately fish had lousy aim. "Say hi to the peacock boyfriend for me."

**Atarneus, Ancient Greece, 352 BCE**

Crowley saw the angel before the angel saw him. He took few moments to stare unabashed, reassure himself that it had not been just the fondness of absence and daydreaming idealising him in his head.

Aziraphale really was as bright as in his daydreams, that bright, gleaming moonlight hair and, this time, the skin of the back of his neck had taken on sunshine and was burnished against his chiton. It suited him. Too long, the chiton, at least a decade out of date in the way it brushed his ankles like a woman's. But then, Azirphale rarely changed things he liked. The linen was translucent enough that, beneath the blousing, Crowley could see that his figure was still that of an angel presenting as a human man, wealthy and well-fed, the lines of his body curved and lovely.

After so long apart, seeing Aziraphale was like pushing his way out of mud into radiant clear air. Crowley wanted to gulp the radiance into his lungs and breathe out love into the atmosphere where the angel would feel it. Every instinct screamed to step forward and wrap his arms around him from behind, plead with him not to let them go for centuries apart again, whisper promises of love into his curls.

Love. No use pretending it was anything else. He had fallen in love standing on the Wall of Eden. All the devotion he should have felt for the Almighty and never did, all the devotion he should probably be devoting to Lucifer right now, and he had given it away unasked to a Principality with a soft smile and kind voice.

And it was useless, utterly useless. Because if there was any risk at all that he could make Aziraphale Fall by embracing him, dull his glow and make those sweet eyes bitter, then it wouldn't happen.

"Who are you waiting for, angel?" Crowley used his best drawl, low and sweet and dangerous, the one that said: _I am coating you with milk and honey only to feed you to the wasps_. At least, Crowley hoped that was its effect. When he tried it out on a group of Erics, they had obediently looked terrified, but looking terrified was what the Legion of Erics did most of the time anyway. When Crowley tried it out on Dagon, Dagon laughed until they choked on their own seawater. He hadn't dared try it on Andromalech.

"Crowley!" No fear in the angel's voice. Possibly joy. Possibly Crowley was projecting because he so desperately wanted Aziraphale to be happy to see him. Certainly, when Aziraphale turned, his lips were pressed in a reproving frown. "Must you always be so theatrically evil?"

"Comes with the job," Crowley said, a little thrown by the _theatrical_ and determined not to show it. He posed carefully instead, leaning in the doorway, hip thrust out. No harm, he told himself, in making the angel admire him, at least. "So, why do you want me?"

Aziraphale dropped his lashes, flustered. "I was _expecting_ Tyrant Eubulus to send me a Persian slave. That's what he said he would do."

"And here I am." Crowley made a gesture intended to take in everything from his own long oiled ringlets to his Persian skirt. "Again, why did you want me?"

"Oh! Slave isn't usually the role you take on." Aziraphale's eyes were alight with curiosity, bright in his bronzed face. "Too undignified for you. The clothes suit you, though."

"Angel, there is currently a freed eunuch slave ruling hand in hand, or at least with some shared body parts, with the Tyrant. It isn't too bad being a slave here, although I don't go in for the eunuch thing much." Crowley attempted a below-the-lashes flirtatious look worthy of the angel, but wasn't sure how well he could pull it off. "Are you finally going to tell me what I can do to help you?"

He watched Aziraphale, trying to hide any desperation about knowing why. Because the truth was, he was here because Aziraphale had summoned him. Aziraphale had wanted, really truly wanted, Crowley there in Atarneus, and he wasn't sure if Aziraphale knew it or not.

"I needed help bathing," was all Aziraphale said, gesturing to the large water basin and the couch.

"Oh." Crowley swallowed. "Well, I can do _that_." He stepped forward and began to unpin Aziraphale's chiton.

"I can do that myself," Aziraphale said hastily.

"And do me out of a job? Stand still," Crowley growled.

There was a faint trembling to his hands as he worked the pins, which was ridiculous. Nobody wore much in the way of clothes here, and the thing Aziraphale was wearing was almost as see-through as going nude anyway. Well. They were an angel and a once-angel, and mortal forms were just that. There was no reason to feel slightly dizzy, just because he was standing so close, helping Aziraphale disrobe. Certainly, there was no reason to imagine he was undressing him for more intimate reasons. He willed down his own surge of arousal.

_Why did you want me, angel? You don't seem to be in trouble. Were you thinking of me?_

He was doing it all wrong. He should have taken off Aziraphale's belt before unpinning him. The top of the chiton pooled and then fell down around it. The two of them stared down at it, Aziraphale's plush chest bared, the rest of his chiton suspended around his loins, belt hidden in the folds.

"How long have you been a slave here, anyway?" Aziraphale pursed his lips.

"About twenty minutes," Crowley admitted, and Aziraphale's face lit up with conspiratorial glee. "Come on, angel. This is harder than it looks." He winced at his own unfortunate choice of words. "I think I need to—" He groped down, bundling the linen up to try to get to the belt, accidentally pulling the hem up with it and tripping Aziraphale, who stumbled to the side, flailing to regain his balance, and ended up leaning against the wall, Crowley still holding the chiton up and exposing Aziraphale's magnificent backside from the waist down.

Oh, this was _unfair_. Crowley turned bright red and dropped the fabric. "Oh, bless it." He snapped his fingers, and Aziraphale was naked, his clothes neatly folded. Somehow it was less provocative than him leaning against the wall, chiton lifted up, as if he was preparing to... preparing for... Crowley turned sharply away, but the blood was pulsing downwards and heat spreading.

"You'd think clothes were a mystery to you and you've never undressed yourself," Aziraphale said, chuckling and apparently completely at ease.

Crowley, who usually just materialised his clothes on and off when he felt like it, shrugged guiltily. "You're the decadent noble being dressed by slaves."

"It's important to fit in, you know that," Aziraphale said a little testily, "And will you stop staring into the corner as if I was going to burn your eyes out, or will I have to bathe myself?"

"Heaven forbid, you decadent noble," Crowley teased, finally managing to assert control over his corporation. "Turn down your halo, angel, you're shining too bright and blinding me. I'm only a poor demon."

"I wasn't aware I had my halo turned on at all."

"Really?" Crowley gulped, looked around, and found a vessel of olive oil. "Must just be you. Well, now you've got your kit off, we'll get you oiled down, shall we?" Torture, he decided. This was some kind of torment of which Dagon would be proud.

Aziraphale moved unselfconsciously to the couch and reclined face down. That soft back, the way it dimpled above the curves of his buttocks, the generous spread of thighs, the curve of his calves, all exposed and trusting and waiting for a demon's hands to slide over them, massage the pliant flesh, caress the skin.

Take advantage.

"No. I can't do this." Crowley put down the oil again, his hands trembling, his cock filling beyond his scattered wits' abilities to calm it down. "Angel, I'm a bloody demon, and some things are just too much to ask of me."

Crowley turned back towards the corner. He couldn't bear seeing knowledge dawning in those innocent eyes, scorn and rejection. Filthy demon with filthy lusts, spoiling everything, throwing away the one good thing in his existence.

"It's all right," Aziraphale said, at last. "These human forms. They have their foibles." There was flutter of Grace tinged miracle, slightly stinging Crowley. "There. I'm clean and dressed now. I had hoped — it's been a while and I missed your company. I thought we could talk while I bathed."

It cut through the shame just a little, but of course Aziraphale hadn't been thinking Crowley would be all sordid and lecherous at him when he had been chastely missing him.

"I should have been more sensitive," Aziraphale said at last, and Crowley turned, full of compunction, his body softening along with his heart.

"It wasn't your fault, angel. You're without sin, that's the whole bloody point. And I—"

"Are what God designed you to be, and that isn't your fault either, dear boy," Aziraphale said firmly. "All part of the ineffable plan. Besides, if you don't mind me saying so, you are unique among the demons of my acquaintance."

Crowley's mind flew to other demons. Which had Aziraphale met? Had they _hurt_ him? If they had, he would hunt down every last one of them and make them realise what it meant to threaten his angel.

Crowley realised he was scowling at Aziraphale, and tried to smile reassuringly. He was horribly afraid it came across as an evil smirk. "You're not much like other angels."

Aziraphale winced. "Don't rub it in." He sighed and reclined on the couch again, gesturing to the matching one. Crowley took his place on it warily, so they were sitting, back to back, head to head. "If I was like the other angels," Aziraphale said, very, very quietly, "I would feel better about following policy here."

And there it was. The reason for the summons, the reason Aziraphale had wanted him enough to summon him. "What policy?"

Aziraphale bit his lip, sending another dull spark of desire through Crowley. "I shouldn't tell you. You're the enemy."

"An honourable enemy, I hope. And who else do you have to confide in?"

"The King does not have long to live. All according to plan. And it seems there is a certain danger he will leave the throne to his eunuch lover. An ex-slave. Very unseemly and sinful. It can't be allowed to happen, of course," Aziraphale said, brightly and meaningfully. "And it won't. Not with Heaven's representative here."

"Not unless there were infernal forces working against you," Crowley said thoughtfully.

"Indeed." Aziraphale's voice dropped again, along with his eyelids. "Crowley, whatever his birth and status, Hermias is an intelligent man, a scholar and a philosopher. Pupil of Plato, friend of Aristotle. There could be much worse tyrants. And Eubulus loves him truly. Perhaps he shouldn't... but can you blame anyone for loving someone they shouldn't?"

Aziraphale's refined voice had notes in it that Crowley was sure he recognised. Longing and guilt. And his hand lay on the back of the couch. Crowley sat up and ghosted his lips over it, not touching the angel's skin except with his breath, aware that his gaze was naked and if Aziraphale only lifted those drooping lashes he would see, see all the love and desire and frustrated yearning exposed in his hungry face.

Aziraphale kept his lashes lowered. Crowley wondered if he could feel the breath on his skin. Demonic breath, degrading by nature — but he had admitted his desires to Aziraphale and Aziraphale had not flinched away. Was lying close to him, confiding his worries — asking for help.

 _Summon me whenever you need me, angel_ , he told him silently. _I'll always come. I'll always help. I will always be grateful just to be wanted by you, my miraculous darling._

Andromalech undoubtedly had meant mischief by his suggestion, but Crowley felt deep gratitude to him right now. Aziraphale had wanted him, and Crowley had known, and come to him, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

By hook or by crook, Crowley decided, Hermias would be the next ruler of Atarneus. Crowley would do the dirty work, act against Heaven — and Aziraphale would never again have to wear the sad, guilty expression he wore when he secretly questioned or went against Heaven's orders. He would be happy and at ease and no closer to Falling and Crowley would take on the burden of rebellion, as was proper. Might even get a commendation if he played his cards right and Dagon forgave him the kiss on the cheek.

"You'll be staying in the city for a while then, I suppose?" Aziraphale said hopefully, and Crowley's heart leaped at his tone. "I sometimes feel — it's foolish, I know — that you are almost, well, a friend."

Crowley sneered. "Friends with an angel? I'd be the laughing stock of all nine circles. But there's no reason I shouldn't hang around and stop you having all your own way in this city."

He brushed his thumb down the swirl of Aziraphale's ear, and Aziraphale's lips lifted just a tiny bit at the corners.

* * *

They stayed together in Atarneus for eight blissful years, long enough to see Hermias become tyrant, long enough to see Aristotle and Xenocrates influence his rule towards Platonic ideals and extend his empire, which both of them happily claimed to their own sides as a plus.

At first Crowley kept carefully away, touching Aziraphale only as much as his pretended duties as an assigned personal slave required. But as one day slipped into another and they began to fall into the habits of the city, where intellect was valued more than status, their hands began to touch more on drunken nights. Aziraphale leaned his head against Crowley's bare shoulder one night, laughing at some ridiculous play, and Crowley's hand came up of its own accord and wound itself gently in silken hair. Aziraphale remained leaning on him all night while Crowley's heart hammered as if trying to escape his ribs.

"Human friends are all very well," Aziraphale said wistfully, as Crowley made sure of his comforts for the night, "But they don't _last_."

"Nothing lasts, angel," Crowley said, his tone harsh as he piled cushions around him, but he suspected his eyes showed his voice a liar.

"Yet you don't seem tired of pretending to be in my service."

Crowley shrugged. "You are close to Aristotle, who is close to the Tyrant. This is useful."

Aziraphale simply smiled.

After that, Crowley began to take advantage of the infamous Persian habits of masculine affection, to begin sitting with his thighs draped across Aziraphale's broad ones as they debated with rulers and philosophers, drink from the same goblet, eat from his plate. Aziraphale permitted each liberty without objection.

Crowley lived in a haze of heavenly and hellish frustration, drunk on affection, returning to his quarters each night with frantic need, his fingers moving fast and hard as he imagined more liberties, the angel's eyes sparkling with more than wine and debate, those pink lips parted for his own lips, for his tongue, for his cock. Imagined sliding his hands between them as he sat on that glorious lap, reaching for Aziraphale, making those golden lashes shudder closed with pleasure as he grasped and caressed and pulled, confusing in his head his hands and Aziraphale's, his cock and that of the angel, until he came and came in release and shame and love.

It was best this way, he told himself. Keep the desperation and the mess to his secret self, where it couldn't taint Aziraphale and the precious blooming friendship between them.

"Our golden-haired guest is very fond of your company, you know," the Tyrant said one golden afternoon, when Aziraphale's lips had been purple with wine juice and Crowley had spent the last few hours trying to resist the temptation to try and kiss them clean. "And, I dare say, the way your hips swing. You should seduce him."

Crowley grimaced through his blush. "Probably not a good idea."

"Because you're my slave? My friend, I was Eubulus's slave and castrated to boot, yet we were married in every way. Aziraphale would purchase your freedom in a heartbeat if you asked him to."

Crowley frowned. "You don't understand. It is being a slave that gives me permission to—" To adore, to cosset, to touch. Although never again to bathe. Aziraphale took care of that himself. "To be near him."

"You could be nearer still."

Crowley glanced across to Aziraphale, pure and resplendent in fine linens, his skin glowing against them, rich and lovely. Desire warmed his belly, but also fear and grief. _You are who you are, and it's not your fault._ So much kindness, so much generous affection, as the door clanged shut on any possibility of returned desire.

"Perhaps one day," Crowley said, lying.

Nothing lasts, he had told Aziraphale, and yet it was a shock when his orders from Hell arrived. He was needed in Rome. He thought for a moment, insanely, that he could risk the wrath of Beelzebub and burn his papers. But War was looming with Persia, making Crowley's presence unwelcome in Atarneus. He had never been much good at making friends. No one else lit up to see him like Aziraphale.

Perhaps they could leave together. Perhaps he could take Aziraphale — on a mission from Beelzebub. Helping him cause death and mayhem and suffering to the angel's precious humans.

He lay awake all night, burning, and then went and curtly told Aziraphale he was leaving. "Trouble to cause, you know how it is."

"Take care of yourself then, demon."

Crowley was almost sure he saw tears in those round, sweet eyes and almost lost his glower. "You take care, angel. You are too trusting."

Aziraphale took his face in his hands and kissed him on the mouth, as an equal.

"Farewell, my dear, and may we see each other again soon, in happy circumstances. Whatever will I do without your company?"

Crowley's mouth worked for a moment, not managing much more than a growl.

Aziraphale dropped his hands from Crowley's face. "I'm sorry. That was too forward."

Crowley leaned forward and kissed the angel's lips, quick and hard. "Goodbye, angel. You of all people will never lack for company. If — if you ever need me, think of me, I will be there."

He turned away hurriedly before he was tempted to say too much. Give away the summoning spell secret or fall to his knees and beg Aziraphale to find a way for him to stay.

By the time news of Hermias's capture by his enemies and torture to death reached Crowley, he was already doing Hell's business in Latium. He spared a moment of grief for the slave Tyrant, and a moment of most undemonic relief when he checked and found neither Hermias or Eubulus were in Hell. But like all humans, Hermias was already passing from his mind. Humans were born and died and drifted through his existence like dandelions.

The only thing that lasted was the angelic kiss on Crowley's lips, still burning all those years later.


	7. Aziraphale Takes His Outer Layers off (London, 2019 BCE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Take off that blessed jacket and waistcoat, then. Your watch chain is not very comfortable to—" He shut his eyes, screwed them against the undemonicness of what he was about to say, but after all, it was what he wanted, wasn't it, and wasn't it demonic to chase his desires? "Not very comfortable to cuddle up to. I would have arranged for pyjamas if I'd known we were having a sleepover."
> 
> ~~~
> 
> A short interlude in a London flat

"Stay with me," Crowley said. Meaning _now, forever_.

"All right, dear. I'll keep you safe tonight."

That really wasn't what he had meant, but they would be safest together, wouldn't they? Crowley tried to regain his mental and emotional feet, his sharp edges. "Take off that blessed jacket and waistcoat, then. Your watch chain is not very comfortable to—" He shut his eyes, screwed them against the undemonicness of what he was about to say, but after all, it was what he _wanted_ , wasn't it, and wasn't it demonic to chase his desires? "Not very comfortable to cuddle up to. I would have arranged for pyjamas if I'd known we were having a sleepover."

Aziraphale laughed, bless or curse him, a sweet titter that wasn't really mocking, or at least not in an unkind way. He pulled away and unhitched his watch chain, and the sight of that in Crowley's own flat was somehow so provocative that Crowley had to turn away.

"My dear, really. I have no false modesty. _We_ never ate the apple."

"Hrrngh," said Crowley, remembering for some reason Atarneus, Aziraphale acting like nakedness was no problem at all. "I will just, just make some tea."

When he came back, not only the jacket and waistcoat and bow tie were gone. The shirt was folded up nicely. Shoes and socks were off. Aziraphale accepted the cup of tea wearing a round-necked cotton underwear t-shirt[which clung to the curves of his chest and exposed his arms from just above his elbow, no braces, no belt, so his trousers were sagging down under the curve of his belly. Crowley considered saying something, but after all, he had asked Aziraphale to wear less.

He decided not to mention it, especially not the urge to just dip his fingers into that soft overhang of flesh over the trouser tops and sink his grip in a little, and instead handed Aziraphale tea. Crowley went to gulp his own into his dry throat, legs casually carefully sprawled over the edges of his chair.

That meant got to see that when Aziraphale breathed in the fragrance of the tea, his bare toes actually _wriggled_. Crowley praised any powers still on their side for the gift and shifted his own position. The tea was the best silver needle white tea he had been able to source, partly because he liked the best of everything himself and partly because — oh, all right. He had hidden cupboards full of teas and chocolate and soft blankets and _books_ in case the angel ever came to visit, which he wouldn't because Crowley would never invite him to this unangelic miserable dark place, except here he was, drinking his tea and lit up with pleasure from it.

"Perfect," Aziraphale murmured, and then suddenly shot him a dark look.

"What?" Crowley fanned himself, looking innocent, hoping his change in position was enough to keep him safe from accusations of leering.

"You've put sugar in yours, haven't you?"

"Just a little." Crowley guiltily swallowed his tea down. "Only four spoons."

"Monster," Aziraphale reproached.

"Yep. Demon." Crowley grinned at him. He was exhausted and scared and filled with yearning and — oh, so happy. So ridiculously happy that he couldn't help grinning. _My darling, my darling, did you even realise you called me that? Twice? Do you know what I call you in my head? My angel, my friend, my love, my own Aziraphale, my everything, sitting there and drinking tea in my flat shining with your own light_. "I'm crazy about sweet things. That's why I'm here with you. Look, I'm not all bad, I didn't add milk."

"Only because you were afraid I'd smite you."

"I've been smitten since Eden." It came out easily and naturally, as if he was a human flirting in a bar and not a demon to admitting to eternal love for an angel. Again.

"Hmmph." Aziraphale wrinkled his nose and gave him a dubious look, _just_ as if he'd tried out a cheesy pass in a bar. "You need to give me more than just tea before trying lines like that."

Crowley laughed, feeling light and full of joy at the way they understood each other, that Aziraphale was implicitly accepting that things had changed. _My darling_. It sang in his ears more perfectly than the choral music still pouring out of the speakers and he had never felt less like a demon.


	8. Careless Hands (Tang Dynasty China, 801 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of the local wildlife dropped onto his lap from a tree.
> 
> "Ssssssso, hullo, Aziraphale. Do you have any poetry books you could lend me?" The snake wound cheerfully around his waist.
> 
> "Not right with me," Aziraphale admitted. "Crowley, it's always a pleasure to see you, but I'm a little busy right now." He really didn't want to be discorporated. Things hadn't really been going well in his reports lately and it might be forever until the Quartermaster issued him with a new body. Literally forever, or at least another thousand-odd years.
> 
> "Whee, this carriage is going fast. It's brilliant. How do you suppose it manages it with only one horse? They can't do that in Europe."
> 
> "Something to do with the way it's harnessed, I expect. Makes it choke less." Aziraphale was never unkind to animals, unless eating them counted, but he gave the horse a little extra push to speed it up.
> 
> "I suppose. I could get used to this kind of speed. The humans here really are exceptionally clever. Speaking of which, those humans behind us are shooting arrows at you."

## Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Tang Dynasty, 801 CE

Crowley had been making witty, erudite conversation, surrounded by scholars and poets, beautiful music playing in his ears, for hours. He was sick and tired of it. He wanted to go and get rousingly, loudly drunk and swear a lot. Drunk without it being part of a blasted literary drinking game. He wanted to get so drunk he couldn't remember a line of a single poem if Dagon was standing in front of him demanding he write it in his own blood.

It had taken months, and a fortune in tasteful gifts, for Crowley get into the social circle of the military governor and the government courtesan who played hostess for him. And for what? Tempt the man into getting further involved in the fuss over the regency, get a few more pathetic humans killed a few years early as power surged back and forth? Whatever idiot in Hell came up with his orders these days, Crowley thought the whole scheme was massively inefficient.

At least the scenery was pretty. Crowley wholeheartedly approved of the fashion for bright jewels and opulent bodies, the courtesans' rounded necklines scooped low to show full breasts as they played music, the men solid and resplendent in their silks. All so deliciously decadent. He himself was as skinny as a newly fledged scholar, or more accurately as a snake. Still, the layers of red and black silk flowing around him made him feel more substantial, less of a dark sneaking thing.

Not as substantial as the man exchanging poems with the hostess. Crowley idly admired the sloping round shoulders and breadth of him under the white silk. Was he in mourning, to wear so much white? Surely not, not with such bright embroidery. Under his ornamented belt, the skirts of his robes hung heavily over what Crowley was sure were delightful expanses of flesh. Such a pity that there was probably some dull official under that black cap, a waste of a body designed to enjoy life and pleasure.

The man turned, as if feeling his idly lustful gaze, and Crowley looked into eyes that weren't dull at all, mingled shades of water in round eyes that were become rounder and brighter in recognition. _Pleased_ recognition, surely, with that smile breaking a round face into creases as he made a fist and palm salute.

"Why, I do declare, Crowley!"

"Still a demon," Crowley said before Aziraphale could ask, winking, knowing it would be taken as joke. He had the impulse to step forward and kiss him on the lips and neck as he had the last few times they had met, a scant couple of centuries ago in Rome, but he had no wish to get off on the wrong foot by showing him disrespect in front of the high society of this province. Instead, he returned the salute. "Still as much of an angel as ever?"

"I try," said Aziraphale, flushed with wine or modesty or — it was foolish to think anything else. "I do try, my dear fellow."

They drew aside into the garden, walking with hands shoved in deep sleeves, not too close. Crowley longed, suddenly and deeply, to be once more somewhere he could take his arm, walk close behind, feel the angelic warmth of his skin.

Aziraphale was sighing and looking around the garden. "We always seem to find each other in gardens, don't we? It's exquisitely beautiful, isn't it? But, one feels, a little orderly and _tame_. As if the wildlife has been reduced to a watercolour."

"I like it. Very well behaved plants."

"As if you cared about good behaviour," Aziraphale said, laughing indulgently. "What brings you here?"

"Political machinations. I don't seem to be getting anywhere, though," Crowley admitted, giving into the urge to appeal for sympathy. "It's like as soon as I get the idea of treachery into the man's head, he's hit by a sudden desire to be virtuous. Almost as if — oh, no."

Aziraphale bit his lip. "I am sorry, my dear. I didn't even know you were around."

"It's all right," Crowley sighed, "You can't help being a good influence."

"Would you like me to leave?" The words seemed to come impulsively from Aziraphale's lips, and then the air was sucked right back into them, as if he was aware of the impropriety of what he had just said. "I mean, I'm sure there's some other good I can do elsewhere—"

"No, don't worry about it," Crowley said hastily, trying not to say _please don't go_ , "I can report that Heaven is thwarting me but I'm making great progress. It's fine."

"It doesn't seem very honest."

Crowley rolled his eyes behind their shaded circles. " _Demon_. What brings you here, Aziraphale?"

"Poetry," Aziraphale said dreamily.

"I should have known it would be something to do with books."

"The young lady playing hostess here is a most accomplished poet. Genius, really, combined with brilliant education and sensitivity. We have been exchanging poetry for some time."

Crowley was aware of a prickle of jealousy. The government prostitute sponsored by the governor had a face almost as rich with expressiveness as the angel's own, and if she was a poet too, that was just unfair. Crowley thought of the contrast between his sharp cheekbones and the curves of the woman's cheeks, his weapon of a chin and her plump, softly doubled one, and frowned to himself. Oh, that would help the contrast, a nasty scowl instead of a sweet intelligent smile, as well. He tried to make his expression more neutral, shifting from foot to foot.

Jealous of a human who would be dead in a handful of decades at most. It was beneath him.

"What kind of poetry?" Crowley asked, despite himself.

"Oh, it's wonderful," Aziraphale enthused. He pulled a scroll from his sleeve. "We were both writing about Spring. Listen:

> This magical young season banishes the clouds and wakes the land to bloom.  
>  Fish play in the river pools catching new scales from the small petals on the surface of the water.  
>  The worldly have no knowledge of the delicate message of flowers;  
>  Careless hands leave torn red blossoms scattered along the bank."

"It's pretty," Crowley said, not wanting to admit just how moving it was. "Saccharine, but pretty." Flowers. Crowley felt a sudden burning rebellion. He was worldly, yes, more worldly perhaps than anyone actually of this world could be, but he appreciated flowers. He reached up to the peony tree above his head and snapped off a bloom, as wide across as both his hands. Not red. It looked yellow on the tree, but of the pale shining yellow that would turn to white if he carried it into the sun. Like the hair Aziraphale wore hidden under his scholar's cap. Crowley wondered if he'd grown it fashionably long.

"What did you write to her?" he asked at last, turning the peony in his hands as they walked.

"Not _to_ her, dear. She has enough humans writing poetry in her praise. To Spring." Aziraphale hesitated, lashes fluttering in uncertainty as he stored the scroll away. "Do you really want me to recite it?"

Crowley nodded once, jerkily, frowning.

Aziraphale cleared his throat, awkward.

> "Flowers bloom: no one to enjoy them with.  
>  Flowers fall: no one with whom to grieve  
>  I wonder when love’s longings stir us most — when flowers bloom, or when flowers fall?"

His voice trailed off, and Crowley realised they were standing close, almost chest to chest, far closer than etiquette allowed. Aziraphale's soft cheeks were pink in a pale face, his multihued eyes gleamed bright and luminous, his lips parting and reclosing, and Crowley felt, for one maddening moment, that he could see his own yearning reflected in that gentle face.

"You wrote that?" he asked, his voice dry in his throat.

"Amateurish, I know."

"It's beautiful." _I could kiss him_ , Crowley thought. _I could kiss him right now, as a lover and not a friendly enemy, and perhaps he wouldn't push me away. Perhaps I'm not such a fool after all. Perhaps he really was thinking of me, and needing me, and the summoning worked without me even realising what brought me here..._

"You must think I'm foolish, trying to write of earthly love, like your friends in Rome," Aziraphale said, turning away, his cheeks red. "I know I can't really understand the mating impulse."

"Of course not," Crowley said and tore the petals off the peony, one by one, as they walked. He saw Aziraphale glance at his hands — _careless hands_ — with something like disappointment and bitterly relished it.

They talked lightly and meaninglessly, and when they parted, it was with another untouching salute.

Back in his own quarters, Crowley lay with his head cradled on a carved jade pillow, and bitterly wished he had pressed the flower into Aziraphale's hands instead, saying _it makes me think of you_. It symbolised nobility and honour here. Perhaps Aziraphale would have lit up like the full moon, and smiled, and thanked him, and Crowley would have to growl and reject the thanks while secretly hugging it to his heart, and Aziraphale would have _known_ that he loved the praise under the scoffing.

Instead, he had torn it to pieces, like the destructive demon he was.

He told himself that in the morning he would have his servants cook a feast for Aziraphale and instruct them to serve with it boiled and sweetened peony petals, as an apology. He had work that would keep him in China for some time. He could be a good dining companion, a charming adversary, a confidant when needed, the spice to Aziraphale's life. Not push any stupid romantic claims. If Crowley behaved, he could bask in Aziraphale's presence, laugh at his absurdities and unexpected bouts of nastiness, admire his cleverness, wrap Aziraphale's affection around him, until one or both of them were sent elsewhere. Just like in Atarneus, just like in Rome.

When Crowley arose from his bed, there was a message waiting for him.

> It was pleasant to see you again, old serpent. I'll get out of the way of your wiles. It wouldn't be proper to wish you luck in your wicked endeavours, but do take care.

Crowley couldn't find out where the pale-haired scholar had gone, no matter how demonically he threatened his servants and spies.

* * *

"No, I don't know how you learn to write love poetry, you great drongo. Maybe try reading it a bit. Your angel friend must have loads of books. Won't do you any good anyway. You could write the most eloquent poem in the world, and when it came time to whisper it into his shell-like ear, all you would say is _ngk_. Now rack off, I'm trying to catch up with my paperwork. I have a date with Dagon."

"What, Dagon? Here?"

"I can't exactly go swimming with them, can I? But a candlelit dinner over some reports, I can do that."

Crowley fled, reflecting bitterly that even a fallen angel trapped under a mountain had a better love life than him.

* * *

## 805

Aziraphale waved a hand, sending a new torrent of arrows scattering harmlessly into the bushes. He hoped harmlessly. He didn't want to leave any local wildlife unnecessarily injured. Needs must when the devil dances, or something like that. It was hard to think when being thrown around in a carriage like that.

Some of the local wildlife dropped onto his lap from a tree.

"Ssssssso, hullo, Aziraphale. Do you have any poetry books you could lend me?" The snake wound cheerfully around his waist.

"Not right with me," Aziraphale admitted. "Crowley, it's always a pleasure to see you, but I'm a little busy right now." He really didn't want to be discorporated. Things hadn't really been going well in his reports lately and it might be forever until the Quartermaster issued him with a new body. Literally forever, or at least another thousand-odd years.

"Whee, this carriage is going _fast_. It's brilliant. How do you suppose it manages it with only one horse? They can't do that in Europe."

"Something to do with the way it's harnessed, I expect. Makes it choke less." Aziraphale was never unkind to animals, unless eating them counted, but he gave the horse a little extra _push_ to speed it up.

"I suppose. I could get used to this kind of speed. The humans here really are exceptionally clever. Speaking of which, those humans behind us are shooting arrows at you."

"Very perceptive of you."

"What did you do to piss them off?" Crowley slithered up around Aziraphale's shoulders and the angel had the odd impression that the giant snake was trying to protect him against flying arrows. Despite himself, he spared two fingers to stroke the demon's side, and Crowley tightened his coils in apparent appreciation.

"They might have formed the impression that I was supporting the eunuchs against the Imperial Scholar."

"Were you?"

"Yes," Aziraphale sighed irritably, "Nothing personal. Heaven's orders." He redirected another shower of arrows.

"So was I. Hell's orders." Snake-shaped demons could snigger even better than human-shaped demons. Something about the tongue. "Our sides need to get better at communication. Save us all a lot of effort."

"I suppose so." Aziraphale felt a little guilty at voicing it. "And now they are trying to kill me, and it's all so inconvenient, and I..." The crossness faded out of his voice, replaced by plaintiveness. "I don't know what to do. I simply mustn't lose this body right now, but I can't be responsible for the deaths of any humans..."

"Oh, all right. I don't want your body replaced either. It might not be as comfortable to sit on as this one." Aziraphale felt his cheeks burn as the snake uncoiled, his heart warming along with his skin. "You owe me, angel. Shut your eyes."

Aziraphale was happy to cooperate, as he was conscious of mass rising up beside him and an infernal roar rang out. He conscientiously tried to love and respect all of Her creations, but a squeamish inner part of him rather drew the line at maggots.

"All done. They'll have a nice tale to tell when they go home about the peach-skinned poet who tamed a giant snake demon with his words and beauty."

Aziraphale felt a slender thigh press against him, a cool lanky form clad in silk against his side. Almost snuggling against his side. Well, that had been acceptable not that long ago in Rome, they had been even more physically intimate in Greece, and it would be churlish to make a fuss just because they were somewhere with more of a sense of personal space. They had come to an understanding long ago that Crowley would restrain any demonic tendencies towards lust, and Aziraphale knew that expecting anything more than pleasure in shared company was impossible. Enough that they were more friends than enemies.

The long muscular arm draped across his shoulder, therefore, had no seductive intent. It was probably just to keep balance as the horse dragged the carriage along at impossible speed, or to warm him with the huge sleeves. He stole a glance up at sideways. Crowley was staring forwards, small dark glass spectacles failing to shield his golden eyes from this angle, looking almost incomprehensibly beautiful to Aziraphale's eyes, his auburn hair escaping in fiery strands from its topknot, his long neck emerging pale and lovely from the dip of his collar. "Thanks — I do appreciate the rescue."

"Any chance to frighten the humans, angel," Crowley said and Aziraphale wondered if he imagined the scarlet flush on the sharp cheekbones. Could be the wind prickling it into colour. "Now, about these poetry books?"

Aziraphale let the horse slow to a gentle walk, sending a calming blessing to it as it caught its wind. Crowley didn't remove his arm. Aziraphale tried to resist the temptation to lean into the embrace and failed. Crowley's hand tightened a little on his shoulder.

"Why the sudden interest in poetry?"

"I don't know. Thought it might be useful to study it more and learn to write it. For, you know. Temptation purposes."

"You do quite well at that anyway," Aziraphale said, thinking of the way the demon's long mouth smirked and dimpled when he was joking, the sway of his lean hips.

"Hmm?"

"Never mind." Aziraphale sighed. What was the use of hashing it all out? "I was going to go home to collect my books and scrolls and tea in any case, and some little souvenirs, and head back to England. I've orders to follow, and I'm getting homesick." Home. Funny that it was a small, damp island and not Heaven, or anywhere light and warm like it. Funny that even this miraculous place, where dancers and poets and music from so many different countries met, wasn't home like that muddy place. "There's not many ships. If you should happen to be heading back as well, Heaven couldn't blame us for accidentally taking passage on the same ship. And well, might as well be courteous. Poetry is an excellent way to pass the time."

"It is." Crowley was still looking forward when Aziraphale peeped, but his expressive mouth was curled in one of his satisfied closed-lip smiles, "Besides, I don't trust you at sea, angel. You'd find a way to get in danger and I'd have to come rescue you." There was an odd smugness in his voice, as if there was a joke Aziraphale didn't recognise.

"I am perfectly capable of looking after myself," Aziraphale huffed, but warmth was spreading through him. Foolish, foolish. They were on opposite sides.

Still, he currently wasn't skewered with arrows, and what was a little poetry between adversaries?

He stole one more look, and thought, _I wish you had found me here earlier, in this beautiful time and place where it feels all the world comes together, while I sat lonely in all this glory and writing yearning poetry. I wish I hadn't run away from the governor's house out of fear of you, out of fear of what seeing you twist that flower in your beautiful fingers did to me, of what you heard in my poems._

Crowley cleared his throat, started to say something, stumbled over the sounds, tried again. "What are you thinking of when you look like that, Aziraphale?"

"Have you seen the magicians here, Crowley? Not real magic, but any viewer would swear it was. How marvellous, for humans to be able to create their own miracles and not have to fill in paperwork. It must be such fun."

Aziraphale clamped down on the words, but his mind ran on, still asking and imagining. _Did you go to the *adjutant_ plays, Crowley? I would have loved to hear your laugh, the way it runs out unrestrained. You always liked comedies better than tragedies. I would have loved to stand by your side watching a chorus dance, hearing your snide remarks about the story. I would have loved to watch acrobats with you and chide you if you cursed them to fall. I would have loved to see you taste sea otter and marinated bear and river piglet, I would have loved to see if sugar appeals more to you than honey. I would have loved to taste it on your lips, I would have loved...Oh, how I would have loved...*

Ridiculous, stupid thoughts about a demon. Bad enough to be haunted by his thoughts while far away from him, let alone with the demon right here. Aziraphale blinked back unexpected tears.

"I haven't.I'm sure they are ridiculous, though," said Crowley, "Why do you want to see silly human tricks when you can turn water into wine?" His words were mocking, but Aziraphale could have sworn his tone was tender and his arm, hard under the layers of silk, was still holding him close.

Aziraphale wasn't sure if Crowley was terrible at being a demon or very, very good at it indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give me a historical period in which plumpness is revelled in, and I'm a happy writer.
> 
> Poetry by the legendary Tang Dynasty poet Xue Tao, who was also a registered government sex worker and hostess for the military general and governor Wei Gao.


	9. No More Reasons (London, 2019 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes there are no more reasons not to say _I love you._
> 
> Beautiful art by lonicera_caprifolium

Aziraphale set down his cup.

"You said we could cuddle," Crowley said hopefully. Aziraphale hadn't said that, but he hadn't objected, not really, and Crowley wouldn't have been much of a tempter if he didn't know how to run with that.

And because he was experienced in temptations, he could recognise the sudden fear and mental pulling away. "Forget it," he sighed. "Just — stay close when I rest?"

"I won't forget it," Aziraphale said, chin lifting with sudden determination. "I _want_ to hold you while you sleep. Maybe, just once in the existence of this blessed planet, I can do what I want."

Crowley blinked in astonishment. Aziraphale had always done what he wanted starting with _oh, I want to make myself feel better by giving these humans a celestial sword_ to _oh, I wouldn't mind chatting with this demon_ , all the way down to _oh, I was hoping to go out for dinner and the table is booked, I will make sure the people booking it suddenly have other plans_. The thought of Aziraphale martyring himself to what he should do was a startling one. These last few days had been difficult because, just for once, Aziraphale had been trying to do what he should do and hadn't been very good at it.

But whatever he needed to let him—

—dear Satan. Aziraphale wanted to hold Crowley while he slept. Aziraphale hadn't fallen asleep in his arms since the first earthquake.

"All right," he said, his voice squeaking a bit. Terror sharp in it now. Crowley had never — he had never been cuddled to sleep. Angels didn't cuddle. Demons certainly didn't. Cuddling was too warm and tender for winning souls to Hell, too likely to bring about feelings of gentleness and good.

Aziraphale looked like he was built for cuddling, for arms wrapped around his soft middle, heads cradled against his chest or shoulders, arms designed for wrapping securely around. The memories of the few times that had happened made Crowley's throat thick and dry.

"You always looked like you were deliberately made to be perfect to hold," Aziraphale said and for a moment Crowley thought that Aziraphale was voicing his own thoughts, but Aziraphale was turning pink and marching on with a kind of heroic determination. "Those long arms and legs. Nice for wrapping around."

"Oh, _Aziraphale_ ," Crowley said, blood rushing from his head, champing down with practised ease on the words he wanted to say, of just how much he wanted to wrap his arms and legs around Aziraphale, and under which circumstances. "Are you trying to discorporate me?"

"Never," Aziraphale said sharply.

"It was a joke, angel."

"I don't always find your sense of humour easy to follow."

"I _meant_ that given half a chance I will—" No, no, that wasn't right. Crowley wouldn't do a thing unless Aziraphale reached out to him first, would never risk hurting him or driving him away with too much love, too much wanting. And now he was risking losing what was offered, losing the chance to be innocently held and wrapped up in affection, just because he was a demon. "No, I wouldn't. Not ever."

"Crowley, it's not funny."

"I know, I'm sorry." He really was sorry. The perfect moment was slipping out of his coils.

"Don't joke about things like that." Aziraphale had his hands on his hips. It was infinitely worse than being scolded by Dagon when Crowley had been caught lying too outrageously on his reports, except at least Aziraphale was less likely to spew stinking seawater at him.

"Laughing as the merry-go-round escapes from its moorings and crashes into the assembled children, you know me."

" _Crowley_ ," Aziraphale said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "Be serious."

"All right, just don't leave. Please." He was really anxious now. "You _know_ I want you and have wanted you for thousands of years and please don't go just because I made some kind of tragic joke. Look, it's okay. I learned my lesson, I won't push any harder."

"Crowley, shut up."

He shut up.

"Come here."

There was a ringing angelic push behind Aziraphale's voice, and if it had been any other angel, Uriel or Michael or Metatron himself, Crowley would have sulked and slithered and resisted. Behind Aziraphale's voice, crisp and slightly effeminate and _beloved_ , the voice he thought he had lost forever, he could only slink obediently forward.

"Look at you," Aziraphale said, voice thick. "Look at the way you move, the way you look at me. You hipless, beautiful, wicked, irresistible _snake_. Thousands of years of _torture_. Tell me there's no reason, tell me there's no more reasons, if you want me, not to say yes."

"Tell me you won't go," Crowley challenged in return. "Tell me you will never die on me again, that we'll find a way."

"I promise." Aziraphale smiled and his smile was as radiant and warm as Heaven never was, and Crowley felt that if he reached out and touched it, there would finally be the faith he had never had, ready to be shared.

Crowley's hand came out despite itself and touched Aziraphale's smile, his lips, pink and gentle, and Aziraphale snatched at his wrist, not to knock his hand aside but to hold it while he kissed Crowley's fingers.

"My darling," he said, for the third time.

"My love," Crowley said this time, and pulled his hand away only enough to caress Aziraphale's cheek instead, to bring his mouth and silently pray — perhaps to the Almighty, perhaps even to Her, perhaps Aziraphale was right — that Aziraphale would reach out at last...

Aziraphale kissed him. Kissed him as if he wasn't some blackened, fallen thing, but someone precious and desired and cherished and wanted, so wanted. Only Aziraphale had ever made him feel like this, with the lilt of pleasure in his voice as he said his name, the brightened eyes and smiles in his presence. Aziraphale, who could make him feel like a chivalrous hero and a dastardly tempter and a comfortable and wanted friend all at once. Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale who was kissing him, pulling him closer with an arm around his waist, holding him like he would never let him go, loving him.

"I love you," Crowley said to be sure, when their mouths finally parted. He might as well say it now. They both knew, had known, and what more was there to lose? "I love you more than all the world. You know that, don't you?"

"I love you, my Crowley. I love you, and if I can throw my uniform down in front of the Quartermaster and refuse to fight demons, I can say I love one."

"You did what?" Crowley asked, shocked and impressed the way Aziraphale always shocked and impressed him when he least expected it. "Wait — wait." He was getting distracted. "Go back to the bit about loving me."

"I love you." Was there ever anything in eternity as brave as those eyes, dark with sincerity, over slightly trembling lips? Lips that pleaded to be caught, and kissed again. So he did.

"You _might_ be fighting demons, if you are determined to stick to me."

"I can run the bath and shower and consecrate them, if you promise to stay out. No, wait, that won't work if I'm trying to protect you. You might get splashed."

"Huh. I wish you would take this seriously. A bath won't be much against all of Hell."

"I am taking it entirely seriously. Adam wouldn't let us go to our fate. And Agnes left a clue. I wish I could ease your fear." Aziraphale pulled him close. "I've always been so afraid, I don't think I realised how afraid you were."

" _Not_ afraid. Demon. Worst has happened, hasn't it?" He knew it was a lie. So much worse could happen. "Kiss me again, you haven't kissed me since the eighteenth century. And even then, I was doing the kissing."

Aziraphale kissed him, kissed him with a warm pressure of lips and tongue and his hands on Crowley's neck, in his hair, restlessly running along his spine and over the bony curve of his hips as if Aziraphale was trying to touch everywhere at once, learn all of him, running over his arse and pulling him even closer and _Satan_. No, Crowley didn't want to think of Satan and consequences, just of the way he could feel hardness matching his own against his thigh and Aziraphale loved him and _wanted_ him...

"You exquisite creature. Tell me you can think of any reason for me not to take you to your bed right now," said Aziraphale breathlessly.

"I forgot to make it," Crowley said, and Aziraphale was chuckling as he pulled him by the waist to the bedroom, and Crowley just concentrated on not falling over into a clumsy puddle of love and wanting.


	10. Fires (London, Stuart Restoration era, 1666 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> London is in flames.
> 
> Other fires are started between a demon and an angel.
> 
> Stunning art by **lonicera_caprifolium**

  
  
London was in flames and the royal brothers and the notorious Merry Gang rode out into the city to save her in her peril.

Crowley was trying very hard to look stylish and properly cavalier-ish in front of the king. This was always difficult on horseback, especially a demonically savage mount like he felt he should have, to keep up appearances, let alone with fire raging around him. He attempted to click his fingers to shield his horse from a rain of sparks, but ended up gasping and grabbing the saddle instead as it sidestepped.

“Are you all right, Crowley?” The handsome man on the next horse gave him a half-mocking, half flirtatious look. “You can sit behind me, if it helps. Or before me. I’m not fussy.”

Crowley glared at him. Despite the affectionate tone, he was sure the leader of the Merry Gang wasn’t entirely displeased to see Crowley make a fool of himself in front of Charles and James. “I’m just fine, Buckingham, it’s that this blessed horse–”

Something tugged at his soul, the irresistible draw of a summoning, and from nearby. Fuck. Aziraphale was supposed to be in Edinburgh, what the–the heaven was he doing in London? Crowley hoped that needing his demon now didn’t mean he was caught in the maelstrom of fire. There was something abut the thought of Aziraphale trapped in flame that seized Crowley with sickening anxiety, like a half remembered nightmare.

He reached out with his power and nudged the horse further into panic. It bolted in the direction of the summons as Crowley clung on for sheer existence

* * *

Crowley could hear Aziraphale before he saw him, the angel’s voice raised in worry and annoyance, and relief flooded him.

“If you could _just_ hold your carts back, my good fellows, we are _trying_ to get people out of the city, you know, you really shouldn’t be trying to get _in_.”

Crowley couldn’t hear the human’s words in response, but the ringing angelic tones were clear enough. “Well, profiting from desperate people is _not_ what I’d call admirable behaviour. So if you would be so _kind_ as to move back just a _tiddly_ bit and let the refugees out?”

There was enough strained sweetness in Aziraphale’s voice to suggest that he was keeping his angelic fury restrained by the barest of threads. It was clear enough that he was in need of a big, bad demon to make the pesky humans behave so that Aziraphale didn’t have to risk losing his temper with them himself. Crowley grinned to himself and reigned his horse in as much as he could.

“Need some help, angel?”

Aziraphale turned, and there was Crowley’s reward, a look of relief. Possibly even, he hoped, a touch of admiration for how Crowley looked in his riding coat and feathered hat with long, elaborately curled hair. The colour of his hair was terribly unfashionable, of course, but human hair wigs, Crowley had decided quickly, were too hot and itchy, and apparently demonic hair didn’t take dye well. At least the fashion for lisping meant his occasional tendency to hiss fit in well. He had a jaunty little moustache, too, which he hoped Aziraphale appreciated. Crowley was enjoying the Restoration, at least when Pestilence eased off on her duties a bit.

Then Aziraphale’s face clamped down. Crowley felt like he had been drenched with one of the stinking buckets of Thames water used to douse flames. This was not the pretty pretense at not being glad to see him, softened with blushes and fluttering and irrepressible smiles, he expected. This was cold annoyance.

“Not at all. I’m sure you have a lot of firefighting to do with the King and his friends, so if you’ll just move along.” Aziraphale’s face was rigid.

“Not until you explain what’s going on.” Crowley’s horse was dancing under him again. He decided the most dignified option was to slide off. “Bit of a traffic jam? I can sort it out.”

Aziraphale gave him the most curious look, assessing and resentful but still…hopeful. “If you could let convince these gentlemen with the carts to stand aside…”

“Trust me. This is my scene.” Crowley sauntered forward, hand on the hilt of his sword. He smiled his most toothy smile and added a demonic flicker of light to his eyes, tilting his glasses down and adding just an echo of eternal damnation to his voice. “Listen, friends, I hear you’ve been disrespecting a friend of the king. You don’t want me to stroll back to old Charlie and let him know you’ve been causing trouble in London’s moment of distress, do you?”

“No trouble, no trouble, your excellency,” muttered the first hopeful and the carts drew back. Crowley smiled and they started to back away.

“There, angel. Easily done.”

“I appreciate it,” Aziraphale said, expressionlessly. “Now, if you make your way back to your friends, I can get on with things.”

Crowley ignored the coolness and stood with him, making sure the profiteers didn’t attempt to bring their carts back in. “I thought you were in Scotland. Should have known, though, given all the near escapes and the way the flames are _miraculously_ keeping away from the very poorest areas.”

Aziraphale sighed, softening a little. “Can’t save all the buildings, though. So many people losing everything they have.”

“I noted the East India Company warehouses went up in flames.”

Aziraphale’s mouth twitched. “Can’t save everything,” he said piously, and Crowley laughed and clapped him on the back.

“I’ve missed you, Aziraphale.”

To his surprise, Aziraphale’s face closed off and hardened again. The angel picked at the lace of his sleeves. “You appear to have had plenty of company. How is George? Do give him my love.”

Crowley desperately ran through all the Georges he currently knew and who might know Aziraphale. Oh, wait, hadn’t Aziraphale been interesting himself in the Quakers lately, despite his exquisite garb? And so, unlikely as it seemed, had–“ _Buckingham_?”

“We’ve been quite friendly,” Aziraphale said steadily. “He’s told me a lot about you. Not that you’ve told me anything about him.”

“ _Buckingham_?” Crowley repeated, still confused. “He’s all right, I suppose. Bit jealous of my influence with the King.”

Aziraphale seemed to soften again, just a little. “Speaking of which, the King and the Duke have been doing a good job commanding the fire-fighting efforts since that useless Mayor unexpectedly left London.”

Crowley grinned. “Man was a coward. Didn’t take much of a temptation to get him to leave his post.”

Complete softening. “You always seem, somehow, to appear when I need help.”

“Funny about that, eh?” Crowley said, blushing and looking away. “All part of the Arrangement. Aziraphale, I need to get back before I’m noticed, but if there’s anything you need…”

And back into frost. “Of course. George will be missing you.”

It was too much. Crowley clicked his fingers and the chaos around them froze. “Right. Spit it out. What is it about George?”

“Nothing at all. I’m happy for you having found a companion. I would be careful if you’re counting on visiting him in Hell after he dies, though, he has a good heart despite his wild lifestyle.”

“ _What_?”

Aziraphale was refusing to look directly at him. “Crowley, we’ve become quite good friends. He has been helping me champion religious liberty. And he tells me all the time about his beloved beautiful Crowley and his beautiful poetry.” Aziraphale’s lips twisted a little. “I am glad my help in teaching you to compose went to the cause of love. I _am_ happy for you, dear.”

Crowley grabbed his chin, twisted it to him, and what he saw in those multicloured eyes, and most of all the hint of tears on the lashes, made his heart hope so hard it _hurt_. Jealousy and sadness.

“Cowley,” he said.

“What?”

“Buckingham’s lover. Abraham _Cowley._ Not,” he said very slowly, “ _me_.”

“Oh.” Colour started to flood up Aziraphale’s face.

“A better poet, for a start,” Crowley admitted.

“Buckingham is all right, but he is a human, and most of all, he isn’t–”

“Isn’t what, Crowley?”

 _Back up_ , Crowley told himself. *This isn’t the time. Aziraphale is stressed and cross and our city is burning down and…oh, the tears on his lashes are glimmering like stars and he has a smudge of ash on his cheek…

“You.” He brought his mouth down to the face in his hand and kissed the smudge of ash, kissed the tear-salty lashes, memorizing taste and texture. “Only you, ever, Aziraphale.” He tilted his head and captured the sweet mouth, feeling it lift willingly to his.

Crowley felt he had never wanted anything more than to part his lips and deepen the kiss, crush the plush body close, taste the inside of Aziraphale’s mouth, bring his already achingly hard body against a full thigh, crowd Aziraphale against the nearest wall and make him his, right here, in a crowded, burning city. His demon blood was burning in his veins, urging him to give in, to touch and kiss and bite and fuck. Worst of all, his heart, which must still be part angel, was burning to love and adore and cherish. Between the impulses, all centred on his angel, it threatened to overwhelm him.

When Crowley pulled his mouth away he could hear his ragged gasp of pain at the effort, and an answering almost-sob from Aziraphale that broke his heart.

“My _dear_.”

“I know.”

“I can’t.”

“I know.” Crowley pressed him close, held his arms tightly around a warm stocky back, committing the tickle of hair on his cheek and the feel of Aziraphale’s body in his arms to memory. It didn’t seem possible that this mortal frame could hold so much, love and desire and sadness and fear and wild joy all at once, especially when Aziraphale’s arms came around him in return. “You don’t need to tell me the stakes for you. I know. I wouldn’t ask–I don’t _want_ that. But no one else, Aziraphale, there will never be anyone else for me. I need you to know that, even if I never say it again.”

“Or for me.”

The quiet admission felt like a blade turning under Crowley’s chest. At the same time it was the most exquisitely beautiful thing he had ever felt. The beauty and joy some angels had seemed to feel in Heaven but which Crowley had never been able to sense himself was here, now, in a despairing embrace from an angel. _He loves me, he loves me._

“Whenever you are in need of me, angel, I will be there. I promise.”

Aziraphale leaned back to look at him, with such tenderness that Crowley felt like he was plunged into the sun. “Don’t tell anybody, especially not my side, but you have the angel of the Eastern Gate’s protection, demon.”

“Oh, _Aziraphale._ ” One last desperate kiss turned into another and another, lips caressing and pulling at each other, not daring to deepen it. Then Crowley sighed, stepped away, and clicked his fingers.

“I need to head back. Aziraphale–the booksellers are moving their stock under St Paul’s Cathedral for safeguarding. Just so you know.”

Aziraphale gave a nod of gratitude and Crowley went to recapture his bloody horse. The smoke made his eyes stream.

* * *

“I’m sorry about the books,” Crowley said awkwardly, as they stood together looking at the ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral. He ached to put a comforting arm around Aziraphale.

“The humans are more important,” Aziraphale said bravely. “Just…so much lost.”

“You should have your own shop,” Crowley said, “Angelic wards and things. To protect against fire.” For some reason his anxiety peaked again for a moment. “And demons. Only, I beg you as a favour, _not_ me.”

“Why, what were you planning?” Aziraphale asked, arching an eyebrow. “Perhaps I should double up protections against you.”

“Oh, just tempting you into distraction,” Crowley said. Their banter felt hollow and false, while at the same time the most wonderful thing in the world.

“Wicked creature. I shall have to keep an eye on you at all times.”

Crowley glowed with happiness and pain. “Come back to Court with me for a while. You seem to know _dear George_.”

“The refugees outside London…I can’t leave them. I saw Famine arrive. I need to do what I can for them. Could you?”

Crowley shook his head. “I have a mission. I need to be with the King.”

“I will see you around, Crowley.”

“Promise?” The words shot out, hard and urgent.

“An angel’s word.”

They stared at each other for a moment, Crowley trying to read the expression in those wide eyes, that mobile mouth, wondering if Aziraphale could see through his tinted glasses. Then, they bowed and parted.

* * *

“Hullo, mate. Your hair looks bonkers and that is the stupidest little moustache I ever saw. Are you using a new smoke scented soap? Taking the demon theme too far, if you ask me.”

Crowley stared wildly at Adromalech, who was curled up on a pile of cushions– _cushions_? Where had they come from?–and, to his mortification, burst into tears.

“Oh, fuck it. You poor bloody snake. C’mere.” Adromalech held up sculpted muscular arms, and Crowley fell into them. It was a bit like hugging a mountain; peacock feathers kept getting up his nose and Adromalech’s hand patting his back was like being thwacked with a log, but it was comforting anyway.

“If anyone sees us cuddling, we’re both dead meat,” sighed Adromalech. “I bloody warned you, you poor sod. Chasing after angels is a mistake.”

“Yeah?” Crowley sniffled.

“Yeah.” His massive hand patted Crowley again.

“He loves me.”

“Did he say so?”

“No,” said Crowley, feeling a bit pathetic. “But I can tell.”

“Huh,” Adromalech said. He didn’t sound entirely convinced.

“He does!”

“Love you enough to Fall for you?” There was something strange in Andomalech’s voice.

“I don’t want him to Fall.”

“Look, mate. Listen carefully. Uriel loved me, right? Right until I was assigned to Earth and wanted to fight to stay with her. Then it was all, don’t question the Almighty and the Ineffable Plan. And once I was a demon -– well, she chained me up here herself.”

Crowley’s blood ran cold. “They can’t help it, they’re angels. They can’t disobey.”

“So were we, yet we did. Look, test it. Fuck him, let him Fall, or get a firm no and find someone else.”

“That worked out so well for you.”

“Better than being a bloody angel if you have half an ounce of self-respect. Besides, it was only a few thousand years and now look at me. My kids are terrorising Hell and I love my job. Can pop up to the surface now whenever I want.”

“ _What_?”

Adromalech grinned at Crowley with flashing white teeth as he finally took in the missing chains, the luxurious surroundings, the neat piles of paperwork. “Being the favourite boy toy of the demon in charge of the files has its advantages, as well as their mermaid form being hot as hell. Seriously, mate, find a demon or sixty and forget your snowy winged boy.”

“I can’t,” Crowley said, absently dismissing the idea. “But how?”

Adromalech shrugged his beautiful shoulders. “Dunno. They did some backdoor deal with Heaven. Didn’t trust me with the details. Maybe some human souls or something.” He looked at Crowley with his lovely bird eyes. “Dagon isn’t half bad when you get to know them.”

“Hnngh,” said Crowley, who had been through too many performance reviews to agree, “Would’ve thought you’d prefer a more active role. Incubus or something.”

“Nah, got my hands full already, what with Dagon and my monsters and my human girls. Told you, your reports are hilarious.”

“I’m glad things are working out for you.”

“Could you _be_ less demonic?” Adromalech shoved him away.

“So why are you still under the mountain?”

“Got used to it. Nice to get up in the sun and go surfing sometimes though. Dagon is fucking stellar on a board.”

Crowley frowned, and not just at the thought of Dagon surfing. There was something wrong with this. Adromalech didn’t seem the type to prefer living in the deeps. But then, he supposed, all the Fallen had their traumas.

“Look, mate, I’m serious about this. We can’t have you crying over an angel or someone will notice. Fuck him, or give him up.”

“I can’t. I won’t hurt him.”

“Fine.” Adromalech shrugged. “But if you ever need help in seducing him, I’m here.”

“Thanks. You’re a real mate.”

“Yeah, right.”

* * *

Aziraphale sank his head in his hands.

Love. Love was all right. He had known, for a very long time, that he loved Crowley. It was something he almost prided himself on. Love all God’s creatures, even the quite disgusting ones like cockroaches, or the Fallen. _Love thy enemy_. He wasn’t stupid, he knew Gabriel and the others wouldn’t quite see it that way, but somehow he had developed the habit of agreeing to what they said and quietly doing what he felt in his own heart was right.

Liking was more complicated. He wasn’t supposed to _enjoy_ the company of demons. But you couldn’t see the same face around for thousands of years, while all others came and went, without developing _some_ affection. Especially when the face was attached to such charming company with such nifty dress sense and good taste in alcohol and flowers.

 _Wanting_ –oh, that was difficult. A benevolent love for all God’s creatures shouldn’t involve hanging around writing poetry about how much you pined to see and love them. But it was still mostly harmless and, after all, Crowley would laugh in his face at the kind of sentimental yearning Aziraphale felt. Would sneer if he knew of Aziraphale’s secret conviction that whenever he was in trouble the demon would appear, non judgmental and helpful and gallant and usually with alcohol to hand. So different to other angels, with their criticisms and demands and disapproving looks.

Being consumed with fiery jealousy because some ridiculously beautiful human kept going on about his handsome, talented, poetic lover and you thought it was your demon was–well. Almost as bad as thinking of him as _your_ demon in the first place.

Letting said demon kiss you in your relief that he was yours was the kind of thing angels Fell over.

Promising to protect a demon…oh dear.

It was time to seek aid from a higher authority.

* * *

Uriel looked impatiently up from her paperwork, gold glinting on her skin. “What _is_ it, Aziraphale?”

“I just wondered. About love and marriage.”

She blinked at him, obviously wondering why he was wasting her time. “That’s a mortal matter, Aziraphale. The rulings on adultery are quite clear; beyond that, we don’t concern ourselves.”

“No, I mean. For supernatural beings.”

She gave him a long cool look from her lovely eyes, and he realised he couldn’t read her at all. Gabriel he knew how to avoid and manipulative, Michael was strict but trusting, Sandalphon was a bit unnerving, but Uriel…She was the Prince of Redemption. She had seemed the right choice to approach about Crowley. Now, Aziraphale was not so sure.

“There is no marriage or giving in marriage in Heaven, Aziraphale.”

“I know, I know.” He lifted placating hands. “But what about, you know. _Them._ I mean, according to rumours and songs, demons get married all the time.”

“That,” Uriel said, frostily, “ _really_ is none of our concern. Whatever perversion of love and marriage they practice in order to mock heavenly love will be visited on them after the Last Trumpet.”

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale sighed.

Uriel stood up. “Aziraphale. What exactly has brought this on? You’re not questioning, are you?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not.” Aziraphale sighed. “It’s just that there’s this, ah, person who has been pursuing me for quite some time, and I don’t know how to discourage them. If, ah, discouraging them is the thing to do.”

She stood there, in her perfect glowing beauty, looking him up and down. “And they find your mortal form irresistible? Interesting. Perhaps you should consider changing it.”

“Perhaps I should,” Aziraphale sighed, “Only–one does quite become attached to corporeal things, you understand.”

“Not really,” said Uriel, and that was the end of the interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we are ticking off eras that I am mildly obsessed with the clothes. Thank you Charles II, King of Bling, and his Merry Gang of bisexual party boys, for bringing the fun and fashion back to the monarchy.


	11. The World (London, 2019 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wanted to save the world but–you’ve been in my world since the Garden. You are the world. What is Earth without its Serpent? What am I without you?”

They stood together in the bedroom and Crowley found himself overwhelmed by the anxiousness of it all. He should take off their shoes, shouldn’t he? It seemed unbearably awkward, but if he didn’t he might bruise Aziraphale’s lovely shins if he accidentally kicked them. And if he miracled their shoes away he might attract attention here, now when he finally got to show Aziraphale just how much he loved him.

He tried to speak and his tongue forked and he stuttered and hissed.

“It’s all right. Darling. It’s all right. My beloved, my own.” Aziraphale stroked his cheek, fingers soft against the stubble.

Crowley tried to explain about shoes, and what came out was, “I can’t make you Fall.”

“We’re rather beyond that, aren’t we?”

“No, we’re not! If you Fall, then Hell is pissed off with us both, you can’t imagine what they will do to you. I can’t.” Crowley crushed him close, the lovely solidity of him, crushed down his lust. “I love you. I love you and love you and love you and I can say it now and you love me and that’s enough. This is a mistake.”

“Is there anything magical about applying friction to each other’s genitals or anuses to the point of orgasm that will cause me to Fall?” Aziraphale asked in his precise way.

“Angel, you can’t just say it like that.” Crowley flushed bright red.

“Would you prefer me to say fucking?”

“Well, yes. Yes I would. It sounds far less obscene somehow. I would expect you to say making love -- wait, no, that’s not the point. Your -– _their--_ side came up with all the rules about sex.”

“It’s permissible within marriage.” Aziraphale’s warm bright eyes were luminous in the dark flat. “I will marry you here and now in the sight of God, if you like. _I_ would like. Very much.”

“You want to marry me? That’s -– that’s all it needed? So what were the last few centuries about? Angel, I would marry you like a shot, you must know that.”

“I couldn’t marry you. What would they have done to you if they found out you’d married an angel?” Aziraphale was holding him even tighter than he was holding Aziraphale. “As if I would risk you, even for a moment. My own, my precious love.” He kissed Crowley’s shoulder.

“Probably pretty much what I have coming now.” Crowley knew he should be afraid, but he was laughing at the freedom of it, the weight of fear that had borne down on him since his Fall lifted at last. “But angel, my darling angel, I don’t want it coming to _you._ ”

“I don’t think it will,” Aziraphale said slowly, “What I have been fearing isn’t the act itself. And I think, I rather think, that if I was to Fall for love of you, it would have happened when I refused to command my platoon and fight Hell for love of you.”

“You wanted to save the world.”

“I wanted to save _you_. I wanted you to go to Alpha Centauri and be safe, but I couldn’t be _sure_ you would be safe there if Heaven won. I wanted to save the world but–you’ve been in my world since the Garden. You _are_ the world. What is Earth without its Serpent? What am I without you?”

“You defied Heaven for me.”

“I _chose you._ And I should have Fallen then and there. I expected to Fall. I _embraced_ it. I possessed a human knowing it was a demonic thing to do and I did it for you. And I didn’t Fall.” Crowley felt reverent lips on his cheek. “Compared to that, do you think She cares about making love to my husband?”

“Yeah, that’s a better way to say it,” Crowley managed through a suspiciously tear-choked voice. “Suits you.”

“We’ll have to face what’s coming to us. But I’m double damned if I do it without loving you first. And oh, Crowley, do you know how much I want you?”

“I have some idea,” Crowley managed. "I’ve been pretty sure for, oh, about three centuries now. The images are kind of ingrained in my mind.”

Aziraphale blushed, and Crowley kissed the blush from his cheeks and kissed his eyes and his mouth and found he didn’t care about shoes after all.


	12. Acting on Their Best Behaviour (London, 1707 and 1811 BCE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thirst and snogging (and more) in the Georgian era.
> 
> Post-Bastille, and a little Regency Ineffable Wives.

**1793**

Crowley spent most of the reign of the Stuarts formenting chaos, although they were rather good at formenting it themselves, it had to be said. He found the younger generation a bit tiresome. Once Charles was gone, the rest betrayed each other at the drop of a hat and were far less amusing that the Merry Gang. He might also have spent a certain amount of time encouraging tea drinking for Aziraphale’s sake, knowing the poor angel pined for China sometimes, and been a pirate for a while, but nothing too outrageous. Missions from Downstairs were coming less and less frequently.

Aziraphale, for his part, was working hard for religious tolerance and Crowley helped him along a bit, putting it in his memos as “promoting religious discord” when really the massacres of the Killing Times in Scotland just turned his stomach. Humans. All over a nice lad who had asked them to be kind to one another.

Then came the bloody Hanoverians. All those tedious German Georges. Crowley encouraged the Jacobites a bit, hoping to get some Stuarts back on the throne, but after a while Aziraphale asked him firmly to stop meddling. For whatever reason, Heaven had decided on a succession of boring Georges, something to do with America and France, and Aziraphale would be in trouble if he failed. Crowley had no orders from Hell regarding the succession and was beginning to suspect he would overthrow Satan himself if Aziraphale gave him the right pleading look, so he gave it up.

Instead, he busied himself tracking down rare manuscripts and books and encouraging Aziraphale to think more about a bookshop. He would scour the world just to casually deposit a book of prophecies on the table at a coffeeshop rendezvous and scowl at Aziraphale when the angel’s eyes lit up.

Aziraphale. Oh, Aziraphale. Crowley thought he had it bad before, but now he knew what it was like to have him in his arms, to know–well, Aziraphale hadn’t _said_ he loved him, but it had been obvious, Crowley told himself. He couldn’t have kissed him like that if not. And he was just as far away as ever, but the wanting was worse, worse than even in Atarneus, now he was sure.

Almost sure.

Every tiny movement of Aziraphale’s lips seemed to say _kiss me_ , every movement of his hands invited clasping and kissing, every look under those long lashes seemed to plead to be held. It was torture, and Crowley became bad-tempered and sarcastic and couldn’t keep away. He came back to London over and over, book in hand.

He had never been so happy.

Then he had received a commendation for the French Revolution and it had been ghastly, like the bad old times back again, and all he had wanted to do was get drunk and forget stupid bloody humans, until he felt the _summon_. His angel needed him.

He should have realised that after crepes and champagne they would end up kissing again, pressed against the wall in some stinking alley, his tongue swiping delicately against Aziraphale’s and his arms full of delicious soft weight although just there, bumping against his thigh, there was the hard evidence that he wasn’t alone in his desire.

“It’s foolish, but I feel you are always there when I need you,” Aziraphale had said, and Crowley had said “Always, angel, always” and it was almost as if they had been pushed into each other’s arms by an overwhelming force. Crowley couldn’t help himself, he rutted against a rounded stomach once, twice, and when he pulled away it _hurt_.

He bent half over, his breeches humiliatingly tented, and tried to regain his breath. He could hear Andromalech in his head, urging him to possess Aziraphale and let him Fall. The angel loved him, wanted him, would let him. Crowley wouldn’t, he couldn’t ruin the only beautiful shining thing in his existence. The only being worthy of Grace. Crowley couldn’t be the source of pain to this sweet beloved friend.

“Thank you, darling,” Aziraphale said, his voice trembling. Had he ever called him darling before? Crowley couldn’t remember. “I was having a little trouble with restraint.”

“I won’t let you down,” Crowley promised. “Not you. Go back to London, Aziraphale. Look after your bookshop. I’ll–I’ll see you around.”

He felt a hand lovingly touch his stupid waxed hair, and then he was alone.

* * *

Perhaps Uriel had been right, Aziraphale reflected. Crowley did seem somewhat fixated on this corporeal form. It made Aziraphale’s own wanting hard to resist. The simplest and easiest solution would be to change it away from what he assumed was Crowley’s preferred configuration, and then maybe Crowley wouldn’t look at him that way and everything would be better.

Aziraphale felt oddly reluctant to do so. He was _fond_ of his body. After thousands of years he intimately knew its shape, its heft, its texture, its quirks, the way it responded when it touched things. It felt like _him._ But there were distinct advantages to something more womanly in the circumstances. For a start, if Crowley _should_ happen to kiss him again, his response might be less obvious that way.

He had been obvious, he knew. Hundreds and hundreds of years of his body being quiet and not at all difficult, even with Crowley’s deliciously lanky legs thrown across his, even with polite kisses and embraces. There had been _temptation_ , yes, because Crowley’s graceful neck and narrow chest and long lips were as fascinating as his personality and far less prickly, but easily kept under control.

Aziraphale was beginning to suspect it hadn’t been the kiss in London that was the problem, but the words. _There will never be anyone else for me._ So much aching love, and somehow the words had seemed to enter Aziraphale’s corporeal body, changing the soft warmth of attraction to something almost unbearable.

The problem wasn’t the physical wanting in itself. Heaven had eased up a lot on the sex thing. The problem was one of loyalty. It was hard enough to remain loyal to Heaven rather than to Crowley as it was. Aziraphale knew, as certainly as he knew his own name, that if he let himself love Crowley as completely as he wanted to, give into it entirely, his loyalties would shift, and he would Fall straight into a demon’s arms.

_You shall have no other God but Me._ The cruelest of Her commands.

Aziraphale didn’t trust himself to worship at a lover’s body without worshipping them in his heart.

He wasn’t sure when he had realised Crowley loved him as steadily as he loved the demon. It had become an accepted fact of his life, a pleasant background hum, forbidden but benign. The mutual attraction had been the same.

But now Aziraphale _wanted_. All the time. He heard Crowley in his head all the time. He found himself wanting to endanger himself just so Crowley would come swaggering in, making good on his promises, teasing and insulting but looking at him like he was the most precious thing in the universe. And he wanted to kiss him and run his hands down those narrow hips, pull him closer, touch and taste. Wanted no barriers between them. Wanted to see Crowley even more desperate with desire than he had seemed in that moment, wanted to fulfil his precious demon and see him blissful and adoring. Wanted _everything_.

And his body followed his mind and the warmth and yearning became such a physical ache that it seemed like he would die if he couldn’t relieve it.

He was alone in the shop, after all. Four in the morning. Even the most determined book buyer wouldn’t knock on the door. Aziraphale had dispensed with resident servants long ago, they kept getting in the way.

Humans had their own way of dealing with these things. It was _technically_ a sin, but surely less of a sin than taking a demon to their bed. It might take the edge off all the _wanting_ and mean he could continue to enjoy Crowley’s company without fear.

With trembling hands, Aziraphale reached down and unfastened the two buttons holding up the drop front of his breeches and drew a finger up the hardening curve. The sudden stimulation made him jerk. _Crowley_ , he thought deliberately, imagining a different, less pampered finger touching him through the fine linen of his drawers. Would he be grinning knowingly, amused at the helpless thrusting upwards of his hips, gently mocking Aziraphale’s unangelic lust? Or would he look at Aziraphale as he did sometimes, unguarded, earnest, _reverent_. Or would his yellow eyes be burning with lust? Aziraphale spasmed again and a wet patch appeared on his drawers.

Aziraphale grasped harder and it was delicious, but not enough. His drawers fell open under hasty fingers, his hand hating to leave his overheated cock for even a moment, and then he was touching skin. Good, God, so hot and silky and so hard underneath, but not quite right, the friction was wrong. He found the wetness leaking from him and spread it and that was good, that was better, his hand sliding better, his body electrified with things it had never felt before. If only it was Crowley’s hand, Crowley…

“Crowley, I need you,” he breathed soundlessly, his head falling back. Crowley intent on his pleasure, Crowley with him, no fear, just the two of them, close. Aziraphale’s breath was stuttering with pleasure, but there were tears on his cheeks and something deep inside him hurt and hurt.

He heard the shop bell without registering it, and it seemed like Crowley’s voice was an auditory hallucination for a moment. “Angel, what’s going on, what do you need?”

“You,” Aziraphale moaned, and then there was a stunned silence as they both came to the realisation.

Aziraphale opened his eyes and looked at a demon who was mouthing wordlessly and making incoherent croaking sounds.

“Crowley.” Aziraphale turned bright red, started to try and fumble himself back into his drawers.

“Ngk,” Crowley managed, “You’re really–oh, fuck, you really–thinking of me.” He fell back against a bookshelf and Aziraphale could see from the movement of eyebrows and cheeks that his eyes were wide and, oh, he couldn’t help seeing the answering tenting in his breeches. “I thought you were in danger,” he choked out.

“I think I probably am,” Aziraphale admitted, staring at the way Crowley was sagging against the bookshelf, palming himself through his breeches as if he couldn’t help himself. His own hand moved back of his own accord.

“Not from me, never from me. Oh Satan…angel…This is a bad idea.”

“I know.” They were so far away, so far away. Perhaps as long as Aziraphale didn’t _touch_ , he could stop from falling into idolatry. No matter how beautiful Crowley was, with his powdered wig and long dark jacket and stockings knitted from black silk showing every delectable muscle of his legs. “Darling, your calves are so wonderful in those stockings.” He could say so much, surely?

“And yours. God, Aziraphale, if you knew how much I wanted to squeeze…bite…”

There was another jerk of Aziraphale’s body and more wetness and Crowley cried out as if the sight was too much to bear, hastily unbuttoning his own breeches and sinking to sit against the shelves, knees bent and parted, and pulled himself out and oh, Aziraphale could _see_ him, red with desire, curving upwards, Crowley’s fist tight around it. He tried to echo Crowley’s movements, guessing he knew better what to do. “Take off your spectacles, darling, please.”

Crowley wrenched them off with his left hand and threw them viciously across the room, not looking away.

“Oh, my darling. There you are, your pretty eyes.” Love. He should have known that what would be in those yellow eyes was selfless, adoring love. Every part of Aziraphale yearned to give in, to let _all_ his love pour out in answer, risk worship. It took all of his remaining threads of self control not to lunge across the room, take Crowley in his arms, _adore_ him.

“Satan, Aziraphale, if anyone else called me pretty but you–you–Aziraphale!” And Crowley was keening and coming in messy spurts and it was too much, Aziraphale was coming too, murmuring _darling, darling, my dear, my snake, my own_ in an incoherent babble.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” said Crowley at last. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Ironic choice of words, but not funny,” Aziraphale sighed.

“I want to hold you,” Crowley said in a small voice. “I want to kiss you.”

“Oh my dear, I want that too, so much, but it’s not a good idea.” The tears threatened again.

“Neither was this,” Crowley said in sudden harsh tones. “I shouldn’t put you at risk like this. We can’t do this again.”

“I know,” Aziraphale said. “I know, my–I know.”

Crowley grinned, a lop-sided heart-breaking grin, and snapped his fingers, cleaning them both up. “Told you I’d always come when you needed me.” He gave Aziraphale one long look that felt more intense than the sun. “I’ll see you around, angel. I–yeah. See you around.”

He left the glasses. Aziraphale, when he finally collected himself, picked them up. One side was slightly cracked.

He folded them and stowed them away in his coat then went about trying to fix things.

Perhaps, though, he didn’t need to change too much. Just narrow the jaw, smooth the hair on his cheeks. Deposit more fat across the hips and thighs, narrow the waist a little. Breasts–oh, breasts felt nice, he made them full and heavy to echo his hips and stomach, and enjoyed the way the weight felt in his own hands, the change in posture form the new distribution of weight. He hesitated a little, then decided that, for convenience around humans, it was best to change between the legs as well.

Also, at least Crowley wouldn’t have any memories of him pulling _this_ body to climax, when they were both brave enough to see each other again.

* * *

**1811**

“Lady Eliza, a lady has come. From _him._ ”

Aziraphale, who was sitting up in bed playing spillikins with little William Astin1, frowned at Mary. “Why would Maria Fitzwilliam’s husband send a lady to this house? Isn’t the Delicate Investigation over and done with?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

Aziraphale’s frown increased. He had worked hard with the Princess, poor lady, encouraging her sense of charity and kindness in this hard world. That unpleasant Prince Regent would divorce her over his discorporated body. If anyone was to be humiliated and divorced, it would be George.

“Send her to me first, dear,” Aziraphale said firmly, handing William off to Mary, “Take baby to Mama and tell her I will handle things. And send tea. And–oh, William, dear, better not call the Princess ‘Mama’ today.”

He was confident in his angelic powers. Whatever spy had been sent to the Princess of Wales’s private residence would soon feel the error of their ways in working for the heartless schemes of the Prince Regent and his mistress, and devote themselves to good works instead of scandal. Might as well enjoy a nice cup of tea to settle his nerves.

He was unprepared for the visiting lady to be Crowley, in a resolutely jet-black visiting gown, neckline cut just low enough and _fichu_ carefully arranged to to draw attention to a cleavage which, although not nearly as ample as Aziraphale’s own, was pressed in and pushed up as far as possible. He wore red roses in red curls worn tightly around his head in an explosion of fire and severe spectacles with dark lenses. He looked sharp and hard and resolutely unfeminine and absolutely irresistibly alluring.

Crowley seemed equally unprepared for the sight of Aziraphale sitting up in bed, drinking tea.

“You–you bastard. Why–why–your breasts are almost completely exposed,” Crowley said hoarsely, clutching his hand to his own small bust, “In this hive of adultery and promiscuity. _In bed._ You don’t even sleep.”

Aziraphale put down his teacup and pouted, aggrieved. “I assure you, the Princess’s household is perfectly respectable, and she is a very nice lady. You’ve seen me in far less that a sleeping chemise.”

“Not recently. And not in that ridiculous nightcap. Blue ribbons. How are blue ribbons fair? God’s blood, Aziraphale–”

“No need for blasphemy.”

“No _need_?” Crowley crossed the room in two wide steps. Before Aziraphale knew it he was pressed back into the pillows, mouth devoured hungrily, one arm around his neck and the other filled with his breast. “You beautiful _bastard._ Are you trying to discorporate me?”

For one beautiful moment Aziraphale let himself be kissed, let himself savor the new feeling of a breast being cradled and squeezed, of the sudden flood of aching wetness between his legs, the almost pain directly above. Did Crowley feel the same? These human bodies, all their delicious mysteries. He ached to press his hips up, get rid of the sheets and Crowley’s skirts between them, find pressure and friction, let his breasts slip from the last covering bit of silk and lace and see if Crowley would kiss them, would suck hungrily on them, would _bite_ them. He yearned to reach between Crowley’s legs and find slickness there, explore and press and thrust his fingers inside.

Aziraphale moaned, his body pulsing inside with something close to orgasm at the thought, then bit his own lip.

“Crowley. Crowley, dearest. ”

“I know.” The demon pushed himself off and pulled his own dress back into place. Aziraphale ached to push the neckline back down. Those small breasts, they would feel incredible in his hands, in his mouth. He wanted to take one nipple into his mouth and suck until Crowley squirmed and begged. “You–why did you even involve yourself here? Royal scandals aren’t Heaven’s thing these days.”

“She’s a good woman mistreated by her husband and that _woman_ ,”2 Aziraphale said, fighting to maintain the illusion of a coherent conversation.

“That woman is his first wife. And he’s cast her off _again_. Shouldn’t you support her, angel, not Caroline?”

“In that case, he had no right to trap Caroline into bigamy. Was that _your_ idea?”

“No, I swear it! All _I_ was supposed to do was tempt him into some extravagances, not that he needs to be tempted. He was supposed to be Charles II all over again, but for all his excesses, he’s terribly tedious. Worse than some of the Roman lot.” Crowley cast himself onto the bed next to Aziraphale and groaned, not with desire this time. “You have no idea how bored I am, angel. And I thought I looked old and skinny enough not to be pawed at all the time, but I was wrong. Forgot the Prince likes the maternal type. But can you imagine, Aziraphale, me, maternal?”

“Poor dear.” Aziraphale risked stroking a glistening curl. “You can’t help being created beautiful.”

“No, I don’t suppose I can,” Crowley said, a little smugly. “But honestly, angel. He is a horrible human.” His gloved hand sneaked across the covers and Aziraphale’s hand moved to tangle their fingers together.

“I agree. It would serve that dreadful man right if he was completely humiliated. Any ideas?”

“Oh, you vicious angel, I lo–” There was a moment of horror as they both remembered that words have power, and then Crowley made a few inarticulate moments and stumbled back on track. “He does have quite the passion for Napoleon. I suppose that could be encouraged along. Until he made a complete fool of himself trying to be an outsized Napoleon.”

“A passion for the enemy?”

“Yeah, who would have thought something that would happen?” Crowley lifted Aziraphale’s hand to his lips, and kissed his knuckles and fingertips. “Your _hands_ , Aziraphale. Oh, your hands.”

“I wasn’t sure if you would like this form,” Aziraphale said, feeling a little shy and wanting to be reassured even if, he remembered, the entire idea had been to have his form liked less.

“I like you in any form,” Crowley said gruffly and the place between Aziraphale’s legs pulsed and ached again. “Always so soft and _luscious_ and–I should go.” His tongue flickered out, forking, and Aziraphale felt something spasm deep inside at the conviction that he was tasting Aziraphale’s arousal on the air, thinking about pressing his tongue to the wet slit and stroking and tasting.

He lay there and watched as Crowley stood and readjusted his long skirts and neckline, waved his crushed flowers back into shape. The empire line of the dress flattered his long torso and longer legs, enhanced his serpentine appearance. You look entrancing yourself. _So slender and slinky, that satin around that high graceful bust, the mysterious awkward grace of you. Always my elegant snake. You are exquisite, my beloved, in any form, and I want you beyond endurance._ Aziraphale didn’t say it.

“Get the Princess and her bastard out of the country if you care about her,” Crowley said brusquely. “Then come back, run your blessed bookshop and stay out of royal affairs. They will only bruise your soul. Parasites, all of them.”

Aziraphale rather thought he would. He was tired of all this high society, and he missed his books. “Would you–could you drop in now and again?” he asked shyly, “To discuss the Arrangement.”

“‘Course I will. Need to keep an eye on Heaven’s plots, don’t I? Can’t have you spreading goodness everywhere without putting in some counter work.”

“Thank you, my dear. And–”

“And I’ll report back that I saw no signs of adultery or,” Crowley’s cheeks reddened a bit, “unnaturally affectionate relations between women.”

“Oh, I assure you, all the affectionate relations between women here are _quite_ natural,” Aziraphale said.

He was rewarded with a delighted bark of laughter, fond crinkles around Crowley’s mouth. “Indeed.”

Crowley licked his lips, gave one more heated glance to where the curve of Aziraphale’s breast and pink nipple was showing over his disrupted gown, spun around with his skirts swishing, and left.

Aziraphale sighed. Obviously this corporeal configuration was less useful at reducing lust than he had thought. And he was sick and tired of wearing stays.

He picked up a rose left behind from Crowley's hair. He felt a bit silly, but he pressed it to his lips anyway.

1 Princess Caroline adopted and fostered many orphans, as Prince George was heartless about keeping her away from their only child and heir to the throne, Princess Charlotte. There were rumours that a particular baby she adopted, William Astin, was her own illegitimate child, but a woman came forward and claimed to be the biological mother. The investigation into this, and other rumors of adultery and lesbianism, was known as the Delicate Investigation. In 1820 George made another attempt to divorce Caroline, but again the “evidence” was nothing of the kind, while George had a former morganatic marriage and many, many mistresses.↩

2 “That woman” was Maria Fitzherbert, a twice-widowed Catholic George married in a non-legal but religiously binding manner. In other words, another victim.↩


	13. So Close Yet So Far (London, 2019 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See chapter title XD

The shoes had come off somehow, or had been kicked off, and Crowley’s jeans had followed them. They–and oh, in his desperate fantasies of coming together had they ever been _laughing_? Why not, when he was feeling love-drunk and Aziraphale’s chuckle was the richest, the most wonderful sound in the universe–had been laughing. The jeans were so damn tight that it had taken all of Aziraphale’s meticulous care to strip them off and the angel had complained all the way. Satan, Crowley _loved_ him, fussy and grumbling even in the heat of love, and kept hauling him up to be kissed again, so it was quite some time before the trousers ended up kicked to the end of the bed.

“I never thought you’d wear underwear under your jeans, Crowley,” Aziraphale said breathlessly.

“I’m not stuck in the fourteenth century, angel, and besides, it hurts like hell if you get your hair or your dick stuck in the zipper.”

Aziraphale sent a brief blazing glance down at the obvious tenting at that and Crowley groaned, “Come back here and _kiss_ me, darling.”

Aziraphale obliged, mouth sweet and hungry, and Crowley took the opportunity to link his legs around his waist and pull him in close, rocking up against him, relishing the sound torn out of Aziraphale.

“Darling,” Aziraphale said, “You called me darling.” His blue-hazel eyes were round with wonder.

“You called _me_ darling first,” Crowley said defensively.

“I have before.”

“I can count the times. I can remember every single one. Every darling, every kiss.”

Crowley regretted saying it as soon as he saw sudden sadness in Aziraphale’s eyes. “Angel, it’s not your fault, don’t worry. I was no better, too scared to show you my heart.”

Aziraphale kissed him, hard and closed mouth. “I’m going to call you darling and kiss you so many times you will no longer be able to count or remember, my darling, my dearest darling.”

“I have a fantastic memory.” Crowley began working on Aziraphale’s bow tie.

“I consider it a challenge.”

“Still too many clothes between us.” Crowley fumbled at the bow tie. “It’s like playing pass the parcel–that was one of mine, by the way–with only one player. Want to see my angel.” He slid his hands around to start to unclip Aziraphale’s braces.

Aziraphale’s shoulders tensed. “Could we–could we leave my trousers on?”

Crowley paused, hands frozen. “Yeah, nothing you don’t want, love, of–of course. If you want to slow down, then we will.” He started to unwind his legs, arching up to kiss a soft jaw reassuringly. “I love you. It’s enough just to be able to _say_ that. I love you so much, Aziraphale, so much.”

“It’s not that. I don’t want to stop. I want _everything_.” Aziraphale was biting his lip now, the laughter and desire fading. “Just–not all the way off, darling.”

“All right,” Crowley said, confused. “But why–oh. The scars on your leg.”

And oh, no, everything was wrong now, Aziraphale looked like he might _cry._ Crowley wrapped his legs tightly again, cradled him close. “We should stop.”

“No. This is just why I didn’t want you to see,” Aziraphale said wretchedly. “I didn’t want you to remember.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s happiness was trickling away, the laughter and lust, and all that was left was the terrifying burning weight of his love and fear. “Oh, Aziraphale.” He clung tighter. _Soon you will face the fire_. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen Aziraphale face Hellfire before.

“It’s all right, my dearest. I chose. It’s all right, it’s all right, my love, my darling, it’s all right.”

Aziraphale was crooning, rocking Crowley close. It was all wrong, why was Aziraphale comforting him when the Hellfire might take him? Crowley hadn’t wanted this, he had wanted the world to continue, had wanted to be with Aziraphale in it, wanted Aziraphale happy and contented and his, not burning, not dying. At least holy water was _fast_ , Hellfire was designed to draw out the torment. Just a few moments ago he had stupidly convinced himself everything was perfect. Aziraphale had said _make love to my husband_ as if it was a fact, as if they were married.

As if they had some kind of future together.

“This is stupid,” he said, trying to reassure himself. “They won’t give you to Hell.”

“They don’t need to, mate.” Crowley stared over Aziraphale’s shoulder at the new voice. “All kinds of nasty deals going on.”

“Adromalech, could you possibly get the fuck out of my bedroom?”

The peacock demon shrugged beautiful shoulders. “Yeah, nah. Don’t be so bloody ungrateful. You have no idea what I risked coming here. Dagon would bloody have my guts for breakfast for centuries. G’day, Aziraphale, see the snake finally got you into bed. Still too good for him.”

“Good evening,” Aziraphale managed.

“Not really.” Adromalech settled down on the bed next to where they were still clutched in each other’s arms, folding his arms behind his bed. “Much as I’d like to stay and watch you two get it on, I have other things to tell you before I’m missed. Have to give you two credit, thousands of years of war and you two manage to create peace between Heaven and Hell because they hate you bastards so much.” He patted Aziraphale affectionately on the rear and Crowley hissed at him. “Hope you’re really as smart as our serpent thinks, mate, because Falling won’t save you now. Now, settle down, it’s peacock story time.”


	14. Love is a Dangerous Game (Adelaide, Australia, 1928 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Jazz Age. After the Holy Water Incident (TM), Aziraphale responds to strange rumours of a flapper with a giant snake as a dance partner.
> 
> There is a demonic intervention.

#### 1928 CE, _Palais de Danse_ floating nightclub on the Torrens River, Adelaide, Australia

Music from the orchestra floated up from the bottom level of the barge where young people danced and laughed on the dance floor. Aziraphale was content to promenade on the top floor, enjoying the cooling night breeze. It was late autumn in Australia and the dancing areas were hot.

Besides, the buffet refreshments were excellent and Aziraphale had recently been freed from a mission in the United States. He sipped his champagne cocktail appreciatively, glad that the Australian temperance movement had been more, well, temperate than in America.

He supposed he should go down to the lower level of the boat and check the dancefloor. Well, not _should_. Heaven probably wouldn’t understand his urge to go check a dancefloor for a demon. Even harder to explain why he went all the way to Australia because he’d read a line in a social comment about a flapper on a floating dancehall who insisted a giant red and black snake was her dance partner.

Of course there was no reason for it to be Crowley. Young ladies today tried all kinds of outrageous things to get attention, as they had even before gossip columns. On the other hand, it seemed exactly the kind of thing Crowley would do if he didn’t want to apologise or _ask_ for attention, but wanted to put up a huge sign saying “Angel, here I am!”

Aziraphale sighed and took a deeper sip. Sixty-six years. In a way it was no time at all, not when their paths sometimes hadn’t crossed for centuries. When had they started to fall into an easy pattern? Crowley strolling into the bookshop as if he owned it, drinks and gossip and casual favours and fine dining, and it had all fallen apart in a second while feeding the ducks. It seemed a very long time.

He had told himself it was a good thing. Crowley was temperamental and self-destructive, and Aziraphale had been afraid, very afraid, that it was all his fault. That his own little weaknesses, allowing a clasped hand here, lips ghosted across a cheek here, a brushing aside of hair, were going to lead Crowley to his death. Better that Crowley not need him.

“Is something up, Mr Fell?” asked his young human acquaintance, patting his shoulder sympathetically.

Aziraphale smiled fondly at her. He liked these South Australian girls, liked their casual manners compared to the girls of their age and class back in England. Whether it was the sunshine, the democracy, or just the opposition to corsets and stays in this terrible heat, they carried themselves with a direct friendliness he found charming. Rose smelled of fern and leather perfume, of hair oil and roses and, unfortunately, cigarettes. Aziraphale did a sneaky minor miracle to send the smoke from her thin cigarette wafting over the water rather than towards him.

The slinky dress on Rose’s boneless hips and the roses in the little ginger curls clustered around her head made him think with longing of the last time he and Crowley had really kissed. “Just being sentimental, my dear,” he said, “Thinking of a lady I once knew.”

“Oh! A sweetheart? A lady sweetheart?” She seemed a little surprised. “Did you fight?”

“We did, long ago. I’m afraid I’m a confirmed bachelor these days,” Aziraphale added reassuringly. He knew a lot of his social cachet right now was based on being a man of a certain age who was presumed to be a certain way, and thus a safe chaperone and recipient of confidences.

“Sounds like a right cow, to give up a nice bloke like you,” Rose said, her scarlet mouth pouting, “Time she got over it.”

Aziraphale chuckled despite himself. So many words he had applied to Crowley since their quarrel: maddening, blind, frustrating, mercurial, dangerous, sensitive, blind. _Right cow_ had never occurred to him, and somehow it felt like the weight of it all had lifted.

It didn’t need to be a tragedy, an end to everything, Heaven and Hell tearing them apart. It was just Crowley being a right cow. And he would get over the holy water thing. Crowley sulked, he was a right cow, but he got over things. Aziraphale felt hope swell and at just that moment, a smooth voice cut in.

“The problem is that angels like him attract demons.”

Aziraphale turned to see a tall woman in a sparkling dress, eyes hidden behind dark eyeglasses, a living snake draped around her like a boa as black as her dress, a faint hint of burning scent hanging around her.

“Hullo, Fell.” She smiled at Rose. “Sorry to intrude, I’m an old friend.”

“ _Oh,_ “ Rose breathed, and then winked hard at Aziraphale, resisting his desperate attempt to grasp her hand and keep her close, “Sorry to be rude, but I must go find my sister. Please to meet you Miss–”

“Call me Annie.” The demon adjusted the long peacock feather draping over her face, and leaned over the side of the barge next to Aziraphale.

“Annie! I’m Rose,” the girl squeaked, and practically skipped away.

Angel and demon stood in silence for a while.

“It’s been a long time. What do I call you, now?”

“Haven't caught up since Eden. Shame. Annie will do -– or Adromalech. Want to hold my snake? I brought him just for you. Heard you liked them.”

Aziraphale did want to hold it, very much, feel its dry silkiness and comforting weight wind around him–but it wasn’t Crowley. Besides, it didn’t do to go around trusting a demon you hadn’t seen for nearly six thousand years to put deadly animals around your neck. “No, thank you,” he said. And then: “To what do I owe this pleasure, my dear?”

“You really are a queer duck,” Adromalech said. “There’s not one other angel that would greet one of their Fallen siblings as ‘my dear’ and describe it as a pleasure instead of smiting on sight. No wonder the serpent is head over turkey for you.”

A shock went through Aziraphale at the words. “Crowley, you still see him? How–how is he?”

“Making Hell considerably worse by moping around complaining about how sodding miserable he is without you,” Adromalech said.

Fear jolted through Aziraphale. “He hasn’t told --–”

“Nah, he hasn’t. I’m the only one he bores with his love life. Don’t worry, I don’t even tell Dagon, even though they would think it’s hysterical,” Adromalech said. Her profile was beautiful and she was smiling remarkably softly for a demon. Which was a stupid thought. There was only one demon Aziraphale had ever spent much time with and he had quite a tender smile. “You know they bring me up to Australia quite often, now that I can leave Hell? Great surfing here.”

Aziraphale looked at Adromalech’s beautiful profile, her golden hair, her Amazonian figure, and felt a pain in the bottom of his stomach. A fellow demon who shared history and confidences and a side with Crowley. A friend Crowley had somehow forgotten to mention to Aziraphale. “Crowley brings you here?”

“Nah. Dagon. They love to swim. You should see them posing as a mermaid, terrifies the humans half to death.” She reflected, “Probably the two cocks that does it.”

“You don’t hate Crowley for tempting you?”

“Kind of hard to hate him. He’s like a puppy that keeps tracking mud all over the floor and then whining.”

“He led you to Fall,” Aziraphale said softly, all the fear of millennia in it.

“Yeah, well. No one can choose it for you. I told you, I was gonna Fall for something really big, not because some stupid snake wanted me to.”

_There’s nothing so spectacular as my dearest beloved_ , Aziraphale thought, and fancied the words hung over the river, where Andromalech could read them. “I’m sorry,” he said, instead.

“Don’t be. The bit I hated was down to Uriel, not Hell. Dunno if I blame her any more for chucking a tanty after what I did to her. I was never rigid and obedient enough for her. Look, Aziraphale, maybe I was wrong back then. Maybe you fit in Heaven even worse than I did.”

“You don’t mean that.” The fear was back.

“It’s not so bad. If you ever come down for whatever reason, I’ll introduce you to my kids. You thought they were giants on Earth, should see ‘em now. Bloody gigantic. Training them up into an army,” Adromalech said proudly, “Can’t have kids in Heaven. The company is better in Hell, too.”

Aziraphale primly folded his hands over his stomach. “That can hardly be true.”

“Suit yourself. But you know there is a snake there ready to welcome you with open… coils, and I always liked you. Bear it in mind. Dagon is all right, too,” she added and there was a blush on her cheek that had nothing to do with rouge.

“I can’t possibly consider it.”

Adromalech stroked her snake. “Maybe not. I never had a flair for all this subtle tempting business. Encouraging wanton destruction and the accompanying paperwork are more my things. Nice place this, isn’t it? Must’ve cost a bloody fortune. I heard the owner would be happier with some insurance money in hand, though.”

“It’s beautiful,” agreed Aziraphale, looking out over the water, the fluting sounds of nesting black swans, the soft evening light falling on the parklands, so much less formal than the park he usually watched swans on in the company of a demon. It was the wrong demon by his side, being too nice and too handsome and not argumentative enough, and Aziraphale felt like longing was going to choke him.

“Look, a party is going night bathing at Glenelg beach tomorrow night,” Adromalech said, “Dagon and I were going to go, but something came up. You should invite yourself along instead. Take your mind off things. Now, find your young lady and have a dance. Enjoy it while you can.” She smiled benignly. “Human pleasures are fleeting.”

“Why on Earth would I want to go bathing at night?”

“I dunno. The trams to Glenelg are pretty fun to ride. Clever humans.” Adromalech kissed Aziraphale’s cheek, and Aziraphale reflected that surely no angel had been kissed by as many demons as he had. Two was definitely two above the average. What was it about him? “Could do with an angel around maybe. Wouldn’t want anyone to drown in the dark.”

Later that morning, Aziraphale woke to the morning papers exclaiming about the _Mystery of the Palais de Danse_ , which had apparently sunk into the River Torrens early that morning after a sharp series of explosions.

He probably shouldn’t have chuckled. But after all, no one was injured and human pleasures were fleeting. He had always been too indulgent of demons, he knew. Too trusting. It was stupid.

He decided he would, perhaps, go bathing that night after all. It was Sunday, so he would have to magic up a bathing costume.

Still, who was Aziraphale to resist the temptation of a friendly demon?

* * *

Crowley’s stupid pointless mission of stupid was nearly over. Thanks to his prodding, the South Australian government had over-invested in their pretty train station and the economy was about to tumble as a result. From what little he could glean from his mission notes, this was just a first taste of what the rest of the Western world was about to go through.

On principle, Crowley supposed he approved. It was efficient and twentieth century, creating misery and evil through over-investment. But poverty–poverty wasn’t a fun way to create sin. These poor sodding little humans, their lives were short and miserable enough without _asking_ Famine to drop in for a get-together with Pestilence–and Pollution, the newcomer, who was happily painting what should be a cloudless blue sky with coal smoke. In any case, why this sodding little capital with its insignificant little forty thousand people?

“Look, Crowley,” Dagon had said, exasperated, “you’re the one saying you won’t go back to London. Get some sun. It’s supposed to be good for snakes. Most of all, get your miserable skinny arse out of here and stop moping. I know Hell is supposed to be depressing, but there are limits.”

“Some Master of Torments you are,” Crowley grumbled.

“I’m supposed to design the torments, not suffer them. Get the fuck out of here and do your job.”

So here Crowley was. And he hated sunshine because it reminded him of Aziraphale. He hated wine and books and ducks and tea and cakes and oysters and shops and umbrellas and churches–what the Heaven was Dagon doing, sending him to the City of Churches, was that some kind of _joke_?–and blue and hazel and green and grey and any other colour that resembled Aziraphale’s eyes, and _Satan_. He should just go back to London and sacrifice all of his dignity, only he _couldn’t_.

He had been lying when he said he didn’t need Aziraphale. He had hoped Aziraphale would be lying too. Crowley would feel the tug of the summoning spell at any point and he would go back to Aziraphale to rescue him from whatever momentary unpleasantness was bothering him. All right, kisses were a bad idea, they had learned that, but Aziraphale would give him one of those long yearning looks and they would both _know_ they needed each other and the world would be back on its axis.

Crowley would go to Aziraphale, if Aziraphale only needed him again.

Aziraphale clearly didn’t.

Fuck. Maybe he _should_ dance right into one of those churches and end it all. Only –-

\- Aziraphale would find out and be upset with no Crowley there to comfort him. Impossible.

Crowley savagely signed his memo _A. J. Crowley_ instead of his proper sigil, just to be annoying, and considered looking for some Poms in a pub just to warn them about drop bears and hoop snakes. Always good for a laugh.

And then he felt it. Aziraphale was in the same town, of all places, and needed him at last. Protective urgency and joy battled in his heart for one moment, and then he cast a quick invisibility charm and spread his wings.

* * *

There was a small group clustered around a fallen man on the beach, his pale blond curls shining in the lamps set up for night bathing. Fear clenched at Crowley’s heart. His angel, his stupid clever angel, surely he wouldn’t let himself be disincorporated by drowning?

“Maybe we should piss on him,” a burly swimmer said and Crowley strode forward in a demonic rage, dark fury uncurling around him.

“Anyone that even thinks about pissing on my angel is having their guts ripped out and fed to their mother, do you hear me?”

The swimmer crossed his arms, unimpressed. “You and whose army, string bean? Your _angel_ has been stung by a jellyfish and pissing on it will make it hurt less.”

“It was only a little jimble jellyfish anyway, he’s just taking on like a baby,” said a girl in a white bathing dress. “Bloody whingeing Pom.”

“Nah, it must've been a big bluebottle. Look at the way the welts on his leg are blistering,” said the expert in medicinal urination.

Aziraphale was doubled up in pain, sweat pouring down his grey face, visible to Crowley’s night vision if to no one else.

“Crowley,” he said faintly, “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got you.” Crowley reached down and scooped up a soft, damp, heavy bundle of angel. Best to get him out of the light and figure out what to do then.

“Boil seawater and put it on hot,” suggested another girl, “That will clear up the pain.”

“Nah, only pissing works,” said the expert, “Stops the scarring.”

Crowley ignored them all, striding off into the darkness with his burden. Aziraphale seemed worryingly hot, but he was also shivering and that wet bathing dress couldn’t be helping.

“Bloody strong for a skinny bloke,” he heard one of the men said admiringly, “That fat fairy’s no lightweight.”

“Angel, not fairy,” said a girl, “Where do you think he’s taking Ezra? Do you really think we just ought to let a stranger walk up and kidnap him like that?” And then the crowd was lost behind Crowley.

Once they were well along the sandy beach, away from the lights, he set Aziraphale down carefully under the shelter of some rocks. Aziraphale was moaning softly now and that was wrong wasn’t it? Aziraphale could complain for hours if his tea was slightly off in temperature, but he was no coward about actual physical pain.

What could Crowley do to stop the pain? In desperation, he actually considered for half a moment taking the advice of the human. Problem was, there were out in the open. There were things that could definitely earn a smiting and a demon standing over a wounded angel and urinating on him was not something easy to explain away.

His demonic night vision adjusted, taking in the extent of white weals and blisters over Aziraphale’s calf. Even as he watched, they seemed to spread across the furry curves of the beautiful leg, blooming blisters as he went.

“Fuck, angel, that was some jellyfish,” he muttered.

“Hellfire,” Aziraphale mumbled.

“It’s serious if you’re cursing. I don’t know if I can heal you safely. You might just have to ride it out.” He knelt close, afraid to touch the inflamed skin, and stroked Aziraphale’s hair instead.

“Not an ordinary jellyfish.” Aziraphale reached for Crowley’s hand and he squeezed it in return. “ _Hellfire._ ”

Crowley fell back on his heels as if Aziraphale had punched him. The weals were burns? They were travelling over the angel, destroying his flesh–destroying his essence? “Angel, _tell me what to do._ ”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t fucking apologise to me. If you don’t know what to do, I will fly up to Heaven and demand Raphael herself come down to heal you.” Crowley lifted the hand in his to kiss it.

“Holy water.”

“I know, angel, but if they listen first, it’s worth the risk.”

“No. Holy water. Stops it spreading.”

“Where the heaven can I find holy water?”

Aziraphale managed to chuckle. “At the sea. Saltwater is best. With an angel to bless it.”

“Oh. Oh shit.”

“Promise not to be splashed. _Promise me._ ” Aziraphale’s fingers dug into his hand, with celestial strength. “Or I’d rather let the Hellfire take me.”

“I promise, angel.” Crowley dropped his hand and ran to the water, summoning a flask as quickly as he could. He was almost afraid carrying it back, although it was innocuous water right now.

“Leave it,” Aziraphale said, trying to sit up and failing. Crowley dropped by his side, put a supportive arm around his waist. “Darling, not so close. Can’t splash you.”

“You’ll just have to be bloody careful then.” His voice was rough, but he cradled Aziraphale as close as he could, concentrating on not speaking his thoughts aloud because they mostly consisted of _fuck fuck fuck fuck._ And also: _darling._ Aziraphale had called him _darling_ again, despite their quarrel.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to have the energy to argue over it. He leaned over the flask, summoning. The weak pained voice became ringing, holy, celestial.

“O salt, creature of God, I exorcise you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by the God who ordered you to be poured into the water by Eliseo the Prophet so that its life-giving powers might be restored. I exorcise you so that you may become a means of salvation for believers, that you may bring health of soul and body to all who make use of you, and that you may put to flight and drive away from the places where you are sprinkled every apparition, villainy, and turn of devilish deceit, and every unclean spirit, adjured by Him Who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”

_Every unclean spirit,_ Crowley thought dully, looking at the water, _Every turn of devilish deceit. And here I am, holding him while he makes the water that can kill my body and soul and I don’t care. He could pour it all over me if it helps him. He probably should._

“O water, creature of God, I exorcise you in the name of God the Father almighty. I exorcise you so that you may put to flight all the power of the Enemy, and be able to root out and supplant that Enemy with his apostate angels: through the power of Him Who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.”

It wouldn’t work, Crowley thought with panic. How could Aziraphale put to flight the power of the Enemy when the Enemy was clasping him close, loving him? _I’m killing him,_ he thought, _My love is killing him. I need to move away._ He pressed his lips into Aziraphale’s hair instead.

Aziraphale lifted the flask and poured it over his leg. There was a sizzling sound and light bloomed around them, stinging. Holy light.

“Thank God,” said Crowley, in the first time for over six thousand years, “Thank God.” He kissed Aziraphale’s hair over and over and reached to pull the angel onto his lap.

“Be careful!” hissed Aziraphale, “It might not all have evaporated. I’m not having you scald yourself.” He already sounded more like himself.

Crowley contented himself with holding Aziraphale around the soft chest instead. His pulse was hammering in his ears and his own chest hurt.

“Hellfire,” he said, “If I find who sent that jellyfish, they will wish they were mortal because I will call in every favour Dagon owes me for their torments.”

“I don’t think they meant ill by me,” Aziraphale said, with remarkable calmness.

“ _What_? Angel, they burned you with Hellfire!”

“I could have survived it easily,” Aziraphale said, “By Falling.”

“What the _fuck_?”

“I don’t think they would have let me die, anyway,” Aziraphale said reflectively, “They let you come to me, after all. I think it was–a choice, or else a warning. The only way to safely be with you is to Fall.”

“Hell knows?” The fear was back. His angel, writhing with pain…

Aziraphale shrugged against Crowley’s chest, a resultant wriggle that under any other circumstances would have been inflaming. “Some must. We may not have been as discreet about the nature of our friendship as we might have been, my dear.”

“You can’t Fall.” Crowley buried his head in Aziraphale’s neck. “I won’t let you. I’ll go away again.”

“No!” Aziraphale’s voice was sharp and, guiltily, Crowley felt fierce joy. His angel _wanted_ his presence. “Just–no more touching. No more kisses, no hand holding, no more temptation. Not ever. Purely work and social.”

Crowley loosened his grip for a moment, then crushed him close again.

“Let me hold you for a moment, Aziraphale. I thought–I thought you were going to be destroyed.”

“So now you know how it feels,” Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley pressed his lips to the side of Aziraphale’s neck. “I just want insurance. Won’t leave you. I won’t. I will come whenever you need me. Always. Fuck, Aziraphale, I’m right, you know I’m right. _A demon came after you._ I need to be able to fight for you.”

“And I won’t let you be destroyed for me. Crowley, please. My _dearest_ love.”

Crowley felt the sob at the back of his throat, and didn’t let it out. It was hopeless. The Hellfire that was his element would destroy Aziraphale; Crowley was the Enemy Aziraphale prayed for protection against in the water that healed him. Fundamental opposites, fundamental enemies. It was stupid to love each other.

As if he had any fucking choice in the matter.

“Friendly enemies, then.”

“Friendly enemies,” Aziraphale agreed, and turned his head to kiss his shoulder, “My darling, darling enemy.”

It was the last time in nearly a hundred years he would touch Crowley, and he didn’t even touch his skin.

**Notes:**

1) Title from Kylie Minogue (because Dagon) _Dangerous Game_. The song starts “Surely this can’t be heaven, though I feel that I died.”

2) Poms=British people. Because mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, and end up looking like pomegranates. “Whingeing Pom” is a common Australian expression.

3) Unlike most things in Australia, like the aforementioned drop bears and hoop snakes, the jellyfish you get in the southeastern states won’t kill you.

4) The _Palais de Danse_ did sink for mysterious reasons that may or may not have been connected with insurance. All anyone knows was that there was a series of explosions…And yes, there were rumours of a flapper who would bring her snake and insist it was allowed on board because it was her dance partner.

5) Adelaide entered economic depression just ahead of the rest of the Western world, largely because of overspending on a huge railway station lined with luxury shops. It’s a beautiful building and still in operation, but it's mostly a casino now.

6) The mention of democracy–Rose would have been born eligible for the vote and to stand for Parliament, which South Australian women (including Aboriginal women, unlike some other states and federally) won fairly peacefully in 1894. White Australian women could vote in national elections upon the creation of Australia as a unified country in 1901. Unlike women in most Western democracies in 1928, Rose would have been born with that all done and dusted.

7) This chapter actually allowed me to use some research I did for a long-abandoned novel I was writing involving dance culture and lesbians in the late 1920s in Adelaide, so that was fun. Maybe I will resurrect it sometime.

8) Australia is having a really hard time right now. Let me once again ask everyone, wherever you are from, to vote responsibly. Climate change is real.


	15. Loves Exaltation (London, 2019 CE)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> True love is consummated. But first there is some business to be taken care of.
> 
> Mostly sappiness and smut to complete this journey. Thank you for coming along with it with me.

Over the millennia, Crowley had dreamed to himself many times that he and Aziraphale would finally leave the Garden completely, be immortals among humans without being agents tasked with messing them about. He had even more impossible dreams about being free to love, to touch, to see his own heart reflected in multi-coloured round eyes. When he had pictured _that_ , he had pictured frantic urgency, starving mouths, hands tearing at clothes, an explosion of need as the dam broke. Especially after the Fire, the Bastille, Aziraphale in a blue ribboned sleeping cap.

Now he walked quietly beside Aziraphale, not touching, content to watch the golden luminescence of him, the happinesss, the fondness, the freedom. 

Aziraphale had walked into Hell for him and come out laughing. It was almost too much, as if taking his hand and linking their fingers would cause some kind of disintegration.

So Crowley fell back on his usual instinct, which was to supply Aziraphale with food and luxury and bask in Aziraphale’s enjoyment. The light seemed more golden than usual, more flattering. Aziraphale had not looked so beautiful since Eden–no, he had never been so beautiful. Never smiled so openly, with love and without fear. He seemed too precious to touch, almost, and warm and inviting all the same. And so smug. So adorably pleased with Crowley, with life, and most of all pleased with himself.

God and Satan and existence, Crowley _loved_ him.

Aziraphale’s hand was lying on the table and, all at once, Crowley covered it with his own. Openly, without fear or needing to have excuses. _Look_ , he thought at anyone from Heaven watching them, _We’re together now. He loves me. You can’t have him back, now or ever. You didn’t cherish him, you tried to throw him away, and now he’s **mine**_.

“Your husband,” Crowley said. “You called me your husband last night.”

For the first time since the park bench, Aziraphale’s radiance faded a little and he looked uncertain. “You didn’t seem to mind.”

Crowley jumped to his feet. “‘Course I don’t,” he managed throatily, “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Aziraphale dabbed his mouth delicately, his beautiful lashes fluttering as if he expected to be seduced right there at the table and it was suddenly difficult not to stop time and climb onto his lap. Crowley contented himself with grabbing Aziraphale’s hand again and pulled him from the room.

“The bill–”

“On my tab. Come on. There’s a shop right across the road.”

“All right,” Aziraphale said, happy and blushing, and oh his hand was in Crowley’s, and they made it across the road somehow.

Crowley held tight to Aziraphale’s hand as he searched the brightly lit shelves. Rings…They must have rings. There. He grabbed the first two he found and held one out to Aziraphale.

The angel looked doubtfully at the ring, held with plastic ties to cardboard. He turned it over in his hand, as if he had been handed Sister Slug and was trying to find a place with less slime to touch.

“What do you expect me to do with this?”

“Wear it,” Crowley said, impatiently. “We need rings. To show we’re married. To show you’re _mine_.”

“This is your choice?” Aziraphale asked, carefully.

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s the symbol that counts.”

“It’s far too small. Sorry, my dear. Pudgy fingers.”

“Beautiful fingers. A miracle will fix that.” 

Aziraphale looked down at the ring again. Gold tone metal with sparkling glass ‘baguettes.’ Five pounds worth of it. For a moment he looked horrified, and then his own golden radiance bloomed out again, and his hand closed over the ring as if it was the most precious thing in the world. “All right,” he said bravely, “If it’s your choice, I’ll never take it off.” He cast Crowley a sharply suspicious sideways look. “If you will wear a matching one.”

“‘Course I will.”

Aziraphale looked around at the tween and teenage girls crowding the shop and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. “I never dreamed you would take me to Accessorize for a wedding ring. Is it one of yours, darling?”

“Closest shop,” Crowley said, “Wanted to get you wed and bed fast. I reserved a room.”

“You _reserved_ a room?”

“Well, there will be a room listed as reserved for us when we ask at the desk, yes.” 

“You do know,” Aziraphale said carefully, “that the Ritz has its own bespoke jewellers under the arches?”

“Never occurred to me,” Crowley lied, “Bit ostentatious anyway.” He took in Aziraphale’s expression, the softly pouting lips, the faint tremble of the lashes, perfectly posed between happiness and disappointment and–yes, a glimpse of bastardy and mischief in those innocent eyes. He suspected they were both going to be wearing gold-tone rings aimed at tween girls for a long time, because neither of them was going to admit for a second that they weren’t serious.

Crowley hugged Aziraphale, in the middle of the handbags and costume jewellery. “Angel, I adore you. And you do, don’t you? Adore me too?” He didn’t care if he sounded pathetic.

“Darling, if you only knew how much. And I want to wear your ring. Any ring.” Aziraphale stepped away. “Except this one.”

For a moment Crowley thought he was still talking about the Accessorize ring and that he had won, then he saw Aziraphale draw the signet ring from his little finger, and fussily store it away in an empty pocket. Crowley felt like the world was spinning around him again. That was it. The last sign of Heaven’s claim on Aziraphale, stripped off as if it was a minor detail.

“Fuck, you’re really mine,” Crowley breathed, “Really, really mine alone.”

“Darling, such language. There are children here.” Aziraphale looked rosy and joyous and not annoyed at all.

“Then we better get out of here before I do something children really shouldn’t see,” Crowley said, grinning so much his cheeks ached.

* * *

Crowley had chosen the Royal Suite at the Ritz with memories of a certain promise made in the twentieth century, along with a romantic idea of laying Aziraphale down on that giant bed like a queen or bride, perhaps surrounding him with roses from the dining room. _Do you remember, do you remember that the first gift I gave you was flowers, my angel?_ His fantasies had neglected to take into account that the suite came with a butler and that Aziraphale would feel the need to be courteous and charming to the butler. Crowley itched with impatience and growing desperation as Aziraphale beamed and chatted and was far too nice. Crowley needed that attention on _him_.

“My husband and I would like to be alone now,” Crowley said at last, “You understand. Newlyweds.” He slid a possessive arm around Aziraphale.

“Congratulations,” the man said, smiling beneficently, and showing no sign of embarrassment at the implication that he was getting in the way of sex, “Let me know if I can do anything at all for you.”

“You can get out.”

Aziraphale turned on Crowley when the butler had left, his forehead puckering between his brows. “Crowley, that was _rude._ ”

“Oh, do you have any idea how adorable your frown is?” Crowley asked and snatched him close and kissed him fiercely. 

“Don’t think you can get out of it like that, you wicked boy.”

“Can’t I?” Crowley kissed him again, feeling the lips fall willingly open, no sign of a frown now, just a sweet tongue sliding against his own, a sigh. “I’m a demon, after all.”

“ _My_ demon,” Aziraphale whispered against his mouth. “Mine…mine. And they can’t have you back.” His hands slipped down, cupping Crowley’s backside, pulling him hard closer in against the softness of chest and stomach, fingers pressing hard into lean buttocks. “Never again. We did it, my darling, my own. You’re not Hell’s now, just mine, and they can never take you from me, I’ll never let them hurt you. _Mine_.” Lips moved across Crowley’s face, his jaw, lips and tongue moving down his neck, teeth raking gently. “My Crowley.”

Crowley felt dizzied. All those countless years of protectiveness and desire and love, seeing Aziraphale as his to protect, bitterly resenting Heaven for owning him. That Aziraphale felt the same, that Aziraphale was possessive and protective of him, demon that he was, was almost too much to bear. He laid his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder and, to his horror, heard himself give a choked sob.

Aziraphale was instantly all gentleness and concern again. “My dearest, what’s wrong?” He loosened his hard grip on Crowley, which left him feeling bereft until a supportive arm was around his waist, fingers carding soothingly through his short hair.

“I just love you so fucking much. Oh, Aziraphale, I can’t bear how much I want you, it’s too much.” He pressed himself desperately against a stout thigh, oh those _thighs_ , how often had he thought of them and stroked himself, imagining rocking against them, squeezing them, biting them, feeling them wrapped around him? And now he could do anything he wanted and the bedroom was on the second floor of the suite and there was no way he could make it. He pressed harder, rocking his hips, and whimpered. “I can’t bear it, Aziraphale.”

“You don’t have to bear it alone, darling. I’m here to bear it with you.”

Satan, Aziraphale was so strong. All those times Crowley had foolishly thought he was the hero rescuing him and now those strong arms were bearing him across the room, practically lifting him, sitting him down on the striped couch and–oh. Well, the bedroom could wait for later. The Georgian style drawing-room was luxurious enough, with Aziraphale’s curls lit up golden by the chandeliers and the couch firm and soft all at once beneath him, as if it was Aziraphale himself. 

“Come here,” he half-sobbed again, pulling Aziraphale on top of him, tangling their legs. Aziraphale’s weight was perfect, bearing down on him, keeping him grounded and safe, _Aziraphale_ was perfect. Crowley bore up and felt tell-tale hardness against him and heard a shattered gasp of his own name, as if Aziraphale too couldn’t quite believe the feel of their erections grinding together, trapped in their trousers. 

It made Crowley remember that time after the Bastille, the sight of Aziraphale jutting up, desire-red and leaking from thinking of _him_ , and Crowley’s chaotic desires suddenly focused on that once point. “I need to see you, angel, please,” he growled, “Need to see you wanting me. Need to know you really want me.”

“More than anything, oh, Crowley, _darling._ ” 

He wasn’t even sure which of them vanished their clothes only that there was glorious flesh against his bare skin, his knees and thighs coming up of their own accord around deliciously padded hips to crush Aziraphale even closer while his mouth reached for more thirsty kisses. It took endless minutes before Crowley managed what he had asked to do, look down and see Aziraphale’s cock suffused with blood, curving up to his belly, aching and twitching with need for _him_.

“Can’t you see? I want you so much,” breathed Aziraphale and his hand, his beautiful soft, strong hand, miraculously slick, was wrapped around them both.

Crowley cried out, fucking up into Aziraphale’s fist, against his cock, unable to think any more, incapable of controlling the babbling as their erections slid against each other. “Angel, angel, fuck, angel, my love.” His hips bucked up over and over, one hand digging to Aziraphale’s shoulder, the other coming to join Aziraphale’s hand, curling around it and around their cocks. “Fuck me, just like this, yes, I love you, angel, oh, angel,” he babbled.

Aziraphale held him close, held him steady, thrusting with him. “That’s it Crowley, darling. So gorgeous, if only you could see yourself, so perfect…mine at last.” Crowley whimpered at that. “Tell me, Crowley, tell me you’re mine.”

Crowley’s cock jerked, splattered a few drops, but stayed hard and yearning. “Yours…my angel…Oh, fuck.” He had never felt anything like it, superheated flesh, velvet and hard, the desperate sweet drag of cock against cock, yet Aziraphale’s hand, Aziraphale’s weight, all keeping him from flying apart and shattering, keeping him here in the precious moment. “I’ve always been yours,” he managed, “Since you smiled at me in Eden…oh, fuck, Aziraphale. So good. You feel so good.”

“I love you…oh, Crowley, I don’t think I can last…”

“Oh, fuck. Come for me then, please, please, I want you to come all over me, I belong to you, only you, my love, my _husband_.” 

At that word, Aziraphale’s lovely mouth froze in a wordless _oh_ , and there were spurts of wetness over Crowley’s hand and cock and stomach, his angel coming for him as he had in the eighteenth century, but this time in his arms. Crowley felt something break in his chest, a flash of pain, and in its wake golden light flooding him.

“I love you,” Crowley whispered again, electrified with tenderness and a strange gravity-less floating, cradling Aziraphale close with his legs as he felt the angel soften. He gently pulled his hand away and wrapped thin arms across Aziraphale’s breadth, holding him close, ignoring the desperate ache between his own legs, not caring that one of his hands was messy with his lover’s spending. “I love you, Aziraphale. It’s all right. You haven’t Fallen. You’re here with me and you’re safe and I love you.”

“Crowley,” whispered Aziraphale, “Crowley.” There was wonder in his voice. “It’s not me. It’s you.”

“I don’t understand.” Stupidly, he could only think of movies and books, of breakups, but Aziraphale wasn’t leaving him, surely, Aziraphale was looking at him with eyes that were all the colours of nature in their softness and shining love and wonder.

“Your chest, Crowley. Does it feel different?”

Crowley looked down and–oh. His chains. The silver chains binding him to Hell were gone. 

“What the Heaven does that mean? Am I an angel now?” He didn’t like the idea. But…his chains. He had almost forgotten their weight, until now they had gone and the sense of lightness was almost explosive.

“No–I mean, you are, you always were and will be, but Heaven cast you out, they have no claim on you.” Aziraphale’s soft face was suddenly almost hard with blazing possessiveness. “Hell tried to destroy you, they have no claim on you either. You belong to _me_.”

“What about you?” Crowley was suddenly scrabbling desperately at his waist. “Are you completely mine?”

“Only yours,” Aziraphale said, and his voice rang with angelic power, giving it the power of a holy vow. “ _Fuck_ Heaven.”

“No, fuck me,” said Crowley, drunk on happiness and sudden freedom and love, arcing up his hips, still almost painfully engorged. “Haven’t come yet, you selfish angel bastard.”

Aziraphale kissed his lips, laughing, and slid off the couch down onto his knees. “May I?” he asked, looking so…oh, Satan, _angelic_ , rosy and golden and sweet-lipped, his expression as tentative as if there was any possibility at all that Crowley would say no to having that beloved mouth around him. Crowley suspected, as more pre-ejaculate beaded at the thought, that he wouldn’t be enjoying it very long _this_ time, but oh there would be other times.

He tried to keep his tone teasing, but his breath was rasping, “May you make my fantasies come true? Go ahead, if you like.”

Aziraphale laughed at that, such a joyous adoring laugh, and took the base of Crowley’s shaft in one hand. Oh, there was that ridiculous ring shining on it, were they both going to wear them without calling the bluff until they turned their fingers green? For some reason it warmed Crowley’s heart. They would choose proper rings together, something fitting for eternal devotion, but for now, these cheap trinkets were precious.

“You are the most captivating being in all of creation,” Aziraphale said reverently, and Crowley knew he meant not just this, not his dripping erection, not even just his lean body and sharp face, but all of him, his mind and heart and even his smudged demonic soul. The completeness of Aziraphale’s love surrounded him, almost burning in its brightness.

Then the other hand came up to gently cradle Crowley’s tight balls and Aziraphale’s mouth carefully took the head inside. His mouth was hot and wet and his tongue caressed the tip, pushed back the delicate foreskin.

“ _Angel._ Oh, fuck. You’re really doing this to me.” Crowley thought of all the times he had seen Aziraphale flutter his lashes shut and contemplatively lick or taste or suck drink and food and now that dreamy expression of intent pleasure was focused on him, on his taste and texture. He wanted to close his eyes and throw his head back but he couldn’t miss a second of this longed-for sight. He clenched his hands into the couch cushions.

Aziraphale’s thumb rubbed carefully up the underside of the shaft and he sucked hard once, twice, three times. Crowley spilled into his mouth, keening softly, and Aziraphale stroked him as he came, something of worship in the touch, blasphemous and precious. As if this was something he had dreamed about, too. Dreamed about kneeling before a demon, sucking him to climax, swallowing his pleasure down. Loving him.

Crowley wove his hands into Aziraphale’s hair to pull him bac, and Aziraphale looked up, his eyes wet and radiant with love. Then he primly wiped his mouth and the prissiness of the gesture, the meticulous delicacy, for some reason was so erotic and endearing that Crowley could hardly bear it.

“You can’t be comfortable on the floor. Come to bed, sweetheart?” 

Aziraphale blushed at the endearment, as if Crowley hadn’t just been falling apart in his hands and mouth, and Crowley's heart turned over again. He promised to himself he would call Aziraphale _sweetheart_ over and over just to see that blush. 

They went up the stairs, nude and hand-in-hand, to the bedroom, white and gold and rosy and opulent like Aziraphale. 

Lying on the bed was a box of chocolates, a bouquet of daffodils, and a single peacock feather.

“Does that bastard have no sense of privacy?” Crowley demanded wrathfully, picking up the feather and throwing it across the room, “He warned us what they were planning, okay, I will always be grateful, but you and I–down there–was he _listening_?” 

“Daffodils for new beginnings,” Aziraphale said softly, “That’s rather sweet.”

“You only think it’s sweet because he left you chocolates,” Crowley grumbled, “You’d think Hastur was sweet if he gave you chocolates.” He thought about it. “Right, that’s it, no one gets to give you chocolates but me, ever again.”

Aziraphale laughed at him, plumping down on the rich bedspread and opening the box, popping a chocolate in his mouth. “There’s a note.”

He picked it up and read:

> Some angel, maybe, had descended To seek a being he'd once befriended To bring him secret consolation, To ease his pain, past bliss recall. Love's anguish and love's exaltation Now held the Demon fast in thrall. 1
> 
> 1 Actually by Mikhail Lermontov, _The Demon_ , ,1839. Yeah, I keep returning to this poem about a lovestruck fallen angel.↩

“Don’t jussst read it aloud like that,” Crowley hissed, sinking to the bed in tortured agony indeed, of embarrassment, “Lasssst time I ever test my poetry on a demon. _Bastards._ Can’t trust them at all.”

“You wrote it for me?”

“You like poetry,” Crowley said, feeling stupid, “I know it sounds rubbish, like that, but–”

Aziraphale kissed him with a mouth tasting of chocolate and Crowley, forgetting Adromalech, could at last lay Aziraphale down in comfort on the ridiculously opulent bed, lazily and adoringly kiss the pearly scars of the Hellfire Aziraphale had been subjected to for love of him, caress every inch he had been too aroused to properly linger over on the couch. 

_I’m going to make love to him again,_ Crowley thought, the wonder of it sending fire through him, all his vivid fantasies of Aziraphale in his arms bright in his head, _I want to taste him at the back of my throat, I want to bury myself in that luscious backside and make him gasp my name as I take him, I want to spread my legs and watch his expression as he presses me open. I want everything, everything, I want to have him until the Universe acknowledges he is mine and I want to be his in every way._ For now it was enough to have his angel beneath him, to touch and stroke and adore and revel at their closeness, at the freedom to touch, to show his love. 

“Always wanted to be close to you,” he whispered against the golden haired pillow of Aziraphale’s belly, “Always wanted you to want me close, always wanted the right to hold you. A demon in love with an angel, it was hopeless, but one bat of your lashes and here I was, desperate for your love.”

Aziraphale shivered under his breath. “You have it, darling. You have me.”

Crowley wriggled back up over him to kiss him again. “I do, don’t I?” he said smugly. “Should have known I was hot enough to win you over eventually.”

“You’re very handsome indeed, you vain thing,” Aziraphale said, in a way that sounded more like a stern reproach than anything, and Crowley barked with laughter. “That’s not why I want you, though.”

“I know,” Crowley said, and kissed him with a hunger that had nothing to do with sex, not really.

_You are here and you are mine and I am yours. Always._

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispered, and that was everything.

1 Actually by Mikhail Lermontov, _The Demon_ , ,1839. Yeah, I keep returning to this poem about a lovestruck fallen angel.↩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this through! This has really been a blast, and I've enjoyed filling it with all of my favourite things. Best of all was art from such deliciously talented contributers. I feel like my dreams came true.
> 
> Thank you especially to my Discord support group and my lovely wife for helping keep me going without the encouragement of regularly posting chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> Beautiful art by [Tamsly](http://tamsly.tumblr.com) (Chapter Four) and [lonicera_caprifolium](http://lonicera_caprifolium.tumblr.com) (Chapters Nine and Ten). You guys are so talented and amazing and wonderful, I feel so spoiled.
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful main beta [tomatopudding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/works) for making this so much better, and to my dear Deamonia, ale_psiconautis, and romana03 for additional proofreading and encouragement. Any errors that remain are just me.
> 
> Thank you also to my amazing Wattpad/Discord _Good Omens_ fam for endless cheerleading, support and putting up with passages copy-pasted at you on Discord.


End file.
